Liturgy of the Hours
by PK Samurai
Summary: For as long as he can remember, a voice has always been whispering in his mind, twisting him...changing him... [Psychopath!Naruto]
1. Nocturns I

**Chapter One: Nocturns I**

_Midnight (pt.1)_

* * *

_Indeterminate time, realm of the gods_

The Almighty God, Creator of All Things, He Who Is, Supreme Being and Principal Object of Faith, Greatest Conceivable Existent...He goes by many names. He does not care what the mortal beings He once created on a whim call Him; their names for Him come and go with the passing of time – a most tedious dimension that He rarely touches, due to its fragility – but if He had to pick one, He supposes He would go by 'Kishimoto' or even 'Kishi.' Yes, it is a name both pleasing to the ear and yet ringing of dignity and wisdom; if He had a physical body, He would be nodding in approval right now.

Currently, He is looking down at the world, mulling over the newest turn of events. A tiny residue power of creation that He once carelessly left behind has influenced the mortals in ways even He didn't expect. The power, which manifested itself as a tree, bore fruit and has led to mortals being born with spiritual energy. Over time, they have learned to harness that energy and with it, perform abilities that He had never intended them to have. They are even able to gain some measure of control over his residue of power, splitting it into more manageable pieces that they then use to wage war amongst one other.

He does not mind however. Although the mortals now have greater influence over the planet than He had planned, they have managed to keep each other in check and have yet to completely annihilate each other. And more importantly, their constant struggle for power and the ideals they have developed as a survival method serve to entertain Him; He supposes He could one day compose a fictional series based on their history and submit it to the Gods' Board of Literature. Since their history has been largely animistic, He supposes the nature deities of Japan would approve. However, they do tend to like their mortal women well-endowed, so He pauses to mutate the oppai genes – the ones that control the size of mammary glands – of one of the recently born mortal children, and...

There: disproportionally big and impervious to the effects of gravitational pull. Perfect. If He had a corporeal pair of hands, He would be patting Himself on the back now.

Suddenly, He realizes that He is being called forth by a mortal. The mortal is using one of the techniques they have developed that allows them to call on His spirit. For Him, it is a minor tugging sensation that He answers on a whim; for the mortals, it is always a technique of last resort. They call it the Reaper Death Seal, and indeed, His influence causes distortions in the physical plane, making it look as if He is devouring their soul.

Dutifully, He materializes behind the summoning mortal (taking the form of His grandmother, bless her Spirit), and is surprised to see that the mortal is sealing away half of a tailed-beast – a sliver of the residue of power that He left. The remaining half, the poor thing, is being trapped against its will inside an infant mortal.

He is the Supreme Being and Creator of All Things, but He is also merciful. The residue of power, while no longer a part of Him, was once a part of Him, and He recognizes, in a detached sort of way, the agony it must be going through. Though He cannot free the beast without directly interfering – an endeavor He strives to avoid at all times – He _can_ make its cage a bit more...tolerable.

Before He leaves the physical plane, He sends a trickle of power towards the bars of the cage, widening the distance between them. That should give it a bit more breathing space. With a nod of His temporarily materialized head, He notes the beast cautiously sticking its head out of the cage, unable to believe its luck.

_"Behave now_," He says sternly, before returning to His distant realm.

* * *

_Six years later, mortal realm_

It is midnight.

Sitting behind his desk, Hiruzen Sarutobi sighs, wiping a bead of sweat from his lined brow.

It has been a long day at work for him – though as the Hokage, when is it never one? But for once, the biggest issue is not an external conflict over territory and borderlines. The problem lies within: ever since the attack of the Kyūbi on the village, there have been growing tensions between the Uchiha clan and the governing body of Konoha. Though nothing concrete ties the Uchiha clan to the incident, people have been pointing out that it is their kekkei genkai, the Sharingan, which has the power to control the Kyūbi. And thus, slowly but surely, they have been increasingly secluded from the rest of the village through a medium of prejudice and deep-rooted suspicion.

Recently, one of their most promising progeny – a newly-minted chūnin named Itachi – has joined the ranks of the ANBU. Hiruzen feels uneasy about the appointment, knowing that the Uchiha clan will take advantage of this to gather information on the village. But the boy seems different from the rest of the clan: more loyal to the village, more peace-seeking, and above all...more pliable. But regardless, Hiruzen has made it a point to always keep an eye on the Uchiha boy's movements and actions.

His train of thought cuts off and he stiffens as he senses one of his ANBU approaching from the window, and he turns around expectantly.

"Hokage-sama!" Owl appears before him; though his face is masked, his fretfully moving fingers betray his anxiety. "There has been an incident within the village."

"Report," says Hiruzen with a frown, as his thoughts flash back to his most recent ramblings. It is far too early for any of his fears concerning the Uchiha to have come true. So what else could it be...?

But the ANBU's reply makes him freeze.

"The jinchūriki Naruto Uzumaki has killed a civilian and left Konoha. Dog's unit has currently cornered it in a cave in the forest west of the village, but are currently on standby, awaiting further instructions. Your orders, sir?"

* * *

"Update from Hokage-sama," Owl leaps down silently to the cave's entrance where Dog and the others are waiting. "We are to apprehend the jinchūriki without hurting it, render it unconscious, and return it to the village where it is to be kept under strict supervision until further orders are relayed."

The waiting ANBU nod at their comrade and turn towards their captain, a silver-haired ninja with a Dog mask. For a second he hesitates, surprising his subordinates who are used to his near-instantaneous but reliable orders. But when he speaks, there is no emotion in his voice.

Following his directions, they file into the narrow cave quickly but cautiously. Almost as soon as they enter the passageway, it makes a sharp turn inwards, and the outside moonlight fades away.

The cave is deeper than it looked from outside, and for a while, they traverse the passageway in tense silence. All of them being the highly trained ninjas that they are, none of their footsteps make any sound, and in the quiet of the overwhelming darkness, they almost feel as if they are slowly coming apart at the seams, becoming nothing...

They are all relieved when they become aware of a distant, strangely high-pitched sound that resounds through the dark air. It grounds them and they pause, but urged onwards by their captain, they continue walking farther inwards. Growing closer and closer to the source, the sound, like a surging wave, becomes a relentless, piercing sound that sets their teeth on edge. As they edge even closer, at a certain point, they suddenly realize it is the sound of a child's unrestrained laughter, flowing maniacally without pause.

But just as they take another step forward, the laughter suddenly comes to an abrupt stop. As the last echoes of laughter fade from the cave, for a moment, there is heavy, oppressive silence. And then –

"I know you're there," a child's voice calls out in a sing-song tone.

* * *

**A/N: **This is a short series about an insane/psychopath Naruto.

There will be quite dark and mature themes/content in future chapters. Consider yourself warned.

**Disclaimer: **The cover image for this fiction is from the deviant 'marxedp.'


	2. Nocturns II

**Chapter Two: Nocturns II**

_Midnight (pt.2)_

* * *

For as long as he can remember, a voice has always been whispering in his mind.

At first, the Boy is only aware of the Voice's presence, but he does not understand it. It is a constant stream of noise; its volume and tone tend to vary by the day, but it is relentless. Sometimes the sounds it makes are more coherent, and gradually over the years, he can even understand what it is saying. But other times, he is sure that it is not actually saying anything intelligible. It is just whispering madly, growling in frenzied frustration.

The Voice is different from the other voices he has heard in his short lifetime. The Voice is deep, guttural and raw. Sometimes, when it is throwing a fit of violent rage in his head, he can't fall asleep. Only when it retreats to its usual muttering can he fall into relieved oblivion.

The first time there is a break in its noise-making is the moment it realizes that the Boy can hear what it is saying. It has been mumbling one of its most repeated phrases – about tearing apart its cage and killing every single being in the village – when, while playing in the sandbox at the playground, he absently asks it what 'killing' means.

There is a moment of silence, its shock causing a break in its years-long rant. The Boy also freezes, his eyes widening. His hands jump to his head, and he falls down to his knees on top of the sandcastle he has been building, crushing it. It is the first time he has heard silence, and he does not know how to cope with it. It overwhelms him.

_"You can hear me?"_ it finally asks curiously. Relieved that the Voice is back, the Boy nods frantically.

_"Yes. But I don't understand everything."_

_"How old are you now?"_ it asks.

_"Almost three_,_"_ says the Boy, holding up four fingers.

_"That's four fingers, idiot boy,"_ says the Voice, but it does not sound angry for once. There is a pleased quality to his tone instead, and it puzzles the Boy. The Voice is always angry, frustrated, violent, wrathful – never _pleased_. _Pleased _is when one of the children at the playground build a sandcastle and their parent pats them on their head. _Angry_ is when a parent notices him standing alone by the swings. The Boy has never heard anyone talking to him in a _pleased _way and it puzzles him.

_"What does killing mean?"_ the Boy repeats his question, growing anxious as the Voice remains in silent contemplation.

_"It means stopping people from doing things you don't like_," the Voice answers him. "_Or getting rid of things you don't like."_

_"You don't like the people here?"_ asks the Boy, picking up a plastic bucket to remake his castle.

_"No. Do you?"_ the Voice asks tentatively. The Boy pauses, stopping to think. Nobody has ever asked him what he likes or dislikes – or anything much about himself. There is an old man who comes by sometimes to check on him, but he never stays long and he rarely talks to the Boy. He makes sure that the Boy is eating and sleeping properly, and then he goes. The Boy thinks the old man must be very important, because his caretaker always bows to him and calls him 'Hokage-sama.'

_"I don't know_,_"_ says the Boy truthfully. Sometimes people are not very nice to him, but most of the time they just ignore him.

_"You shouldn't_._"_

_"Why not?_"__ the Boy asks.

_"They all hate you. Why like people who hate you?"_ it hisses. Somehow, the Voice's presence feels even closer to him than usual, almost as if it is whispering into his ear. The Boy shivers.

_"How do you know they hate me?"_

_"I see, feel, and hear everything you do. I am much older than you so I can tell from experience that they hate you," _it informs him. The Boy's eyes widen.

_"Are you older than the old man who visits me?"_ he asks earnestly.

The Voice snorts derisively.

_"I was old when that old man's grandfather was still wearing diapers."_

The Boy's mouth drops open in awe.

_"Why are you in my mind then?"_ he asks.

_"I was trapped in here against my will,"_ it snarls, a hint of its previous rage flaring again.

_"Oh…then do you hate me too?"_ The Boy sits down on the overturned bucket and begins to rock back and forth, looking down at his feet.

_"Why hate the jail over the jailor?"_ the Voice says carefully. There is a strange gleeful quality to its tone that the Boy does not understand. _"Besides, you seem to be a reasonable kid. Most children are disgusting and intolerable, but you're different from them."_

The Boy turns pink with pleasure, although he does not know what 'reasonable' and 'intolerable' mean.

_"You called me an idiot boy,"_ he points out.

_"All children are idiots,"_ says the Voice quickly. _"But there are a few who can be taught to grow out of that. A child like you, for instance."_

_"Will you teach me?"_ the Boy asks hopefully.

_"If you want,"_ the Voice says. The Boy quickly nods. He likes the Voice. He thought it was scary at first, but it says nice things to him and makes him feel warm inside.

And so, he begins to listen to the Voice. The Voice stops mumbling nonsensical things, and begins to point out things that had escaped the Boy's notice before. Sometimes they are interesting things, like when he tells them that the dew on the leaves in the morning comes from water in the soil that is evaporating. But sometimes they are scary things, like when he tells him that there are almost always several masked people who are following him. They never interfere with him or make their presence known, but they are apparently reporting back to the old man. It scares the Boy at first, but because nothing happens, he eventually forgets about it.

Whenever the Boy is quick on the uptake or points something out without the Voice having to tell him, it praises him.

_"Good boy,"_ it croons to him.

Eager to earn its approval, the Boy soon stops talking to other people. It never likes it when the Boy asks someone else a question, so the Boy takes to asking it instead, even when it doesn't know the answer. But that is a very rare event indeed, as it seems to know everything, ranging from why birds fly in V-formation when they migrate (and why do they migrate?) to what the grunting man and woman in the bushes besides the nightclub are doing.

_"They are copulating. No doubt the female will eventually pop out another one of your vermin kind,"_ it sneers.

"'_Copulating'?" _asks the Boy, watching in fascination with his eyes wide open. _"Is that when the man sticks his pee-pee inside the woman? Is it fun?"_

Outside of when he is building sandcastles, the Boy gets bored easily. That is why he keeps asking the Voice questions, if nothing but to keep himself occupied.

_"Apparently,"_ it says. _"You will learn, in due time."_

But there are a few times when even the Voice does not know how to answer the Boy's questions.

_"No, I don't know how ramen is made,"_ it says hesitantly. _"Although I suppose they boil the noodles – what? No, I don't know how the noodles are made."_

Once, the old man comes by his apartment and asks the Boy to come to him. Surprised, the Boy obediently drops his toys and stands shyly before the man. The Voice whispers to him to be wary of the old man.

"Naruto," says the old man. The caretaker is standing beside him with her arms crossed across her chest and her lips pursed disapprovingly. "Misato is telling me that you don't respond to her anymore. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

_"Don't tell him about me,"_ the Voice hisses warningly. _"He'll try and stop me from talking to you. He doesn't want you to have friends."_

_"Are you my friend?"_ the Boy asks, his eyes widening.

_"What else would I be, idiot boy?"_ it snarls.

"She doesn't clean and she forgets to give me food. Sometimes she locks me in my room and brings her boyfriend and I can hear them do funny things to each other," says the Boy.

The caretaker turns bright red and begins to sputter as the old man looks at her reproachfully.

"I see," says the old man.

The next day, another woman is at his apartment. She is older than his previous caretaker, and all she does is prepare him food and clean his room, before leaving. This suits the Boy just fine.

Several years pass. The Voice is his teacher, but it never forces the Boy to do anything. It is rough but patient in its ways; it has a wealth of information and experience that awes the Boy. If there is one thing that it is insistent upon, it is that the Boy never tells anyone else that the Voice is there. And because the Boy does not want the Voice to be taken away, he is careful about it.

One day, just after sunset, the Boy is on his way back to his apartment from the playground. With some tips from the Voice, his sandcastle-building skills have dramatically increased, and they tower above him by the time he is finished – though the other children usually destroy it as soon as he is done.

Swinging his worn-down plastic bucket and shovel in his hands, the Boy chats with the Voice. Slipping into a shortcut through a narrow alley, he accidentally bumps into a passing man, but doesn't initially take much note of it – usually most adults shoot him a glare and move away from him.

But this one is different.

"What the fuck?" the man snarls. Stunned that he is being addressed, the Boy comes to a halt. The man is tall, towering over the Boy, and he wears a bandana on his head. His face is currently twisted into one of extreme dislike. "You think you can just bump into me and run away without even apologizing?"

"Sorry," the Boy mumbles, his heart beginning to pound in his chest. He tries to slip away but the man's hand lashes out, grabbing him by the arm.

"Well it's too late for that now, isn't it?" The man bends over, shoving his face into the Boy's, staring at him eye-to-eye. "Get on your knees and tell me you'll never do that again."

The Boy trembles, scuffing the heel of his shoe against the ground. He does not feel good. He does not know why the man is being so unpleasant. He wishes the man would just ignore him and leave him alone, like everyone else, so he can keep talking to the Voice. He does not want to get on his knees.

_"What should I do?"_ he asks the Voice desperately.

"Well?!" The man shakes the Boy.

_"What do we do to people we hate?"_ it whispers.

So he takes his shovel and stabs the man's eye with its tip. With a squelching sound, blood spurts out, hitting the Boy in the face.

With a howl of agony, the man immediately rears backwards, clawing at his face with his hands.

"You little piece of shit!" The man screams. As blood continues to stream down the side of his face, he lunges at the Boy. But the Boy dodges his flailing hands, and as the man clumsily falls forward, he twists his hand and slams the shovel's point into his other eye, which bursts open in a mess of clear and red liquid.

His screaming intensifies, hurting the Boy's eardrums, and the man stays on the ground. Convulsing, body parts flailing, his hands scrape worthlessly around his face.

The Boy does not like the screaming, so he steps down hard on the man's throat. The man makes a choking sound, his face purple, and begins to thrash around. An arm lashes out and slams into his chest, and the Boy cries out in surprise, falling backwards.

Clambering back to his feet, he looks around for something hard. In the dark alley, all he can find is an abandoned glass bottle, so he picks it up with both hands. Without hesitation, he slams it down on the man's head. With a loud breaking sound, the bottle shatters into pieces, leaving him holding only a jagged bottleneck. The Boy stabs that into the man's throat several times, and finally, with a last gurgle, the man's screams fade away and his body stills. Blood streams out from the ragged punctures in his throat, and red bubbles foam out from between the man's lips.

The Boy smiles.

_"You're right,"_ he says. _"That made the bad feeling go away."_

_"They're coming,"_ the Voice finally whispers. _"Run."_

_"Where?"_ the Boy asks, his smile fading. His eyes grow wide.

_"Outside."_

_"How?"_

The Voice hesitates.

_"If you'll let me control your body, I can do it for you."_

The Boy doesn't hesitate.

_"Okay."_

There is a curious sensation in his head, as if something within his brain is stretching and expanding. His left eye begins to tickle, and he feels a strange force beginning to run through his veins.

Suddenly, his left hand shoots up in front of his face even though he hadn't moved it. It flexes experimentally, and then without any alarm, his leg muscles tense up and then he is shooting high up into the air, the wind rushing furiously down at him.

The Boy lands on the tiled roof of an apartment complex. For a moment, he stares in awe at the sight of the sprawling village before him, but before he can really take it in, his body is already moving.

_"You see?"_ The Voice turns his head around, and the Boy sees several masked figures in the air behind him, chasing him. _"Those are the people who've been following you."_

But with the Voice controlling his body, even they can't keep up with the Boy. For the first time in his life, the Boy leaves the village's walls, and after traversing the forest for a while, they find a cavernous opening and go deep inside.

When the Voice gives the Boy his body back, he finds himself crumpling to the ground. His body is not used to such strenuous movement, and he is tired like he's never been before.

Lying down on the cold rock in the darkness, he can't see anything, and it feels almost as if the Voice is right there beside him, instead of being in his head.

__"You were right_,"_ he says, panting, to the Voice. _"They hate me. But I stopped that man from hating me."_

_"You see? Just listen to what I say_,_"_ says the Voice smugly. "_But save killing for the people you really hate. If you kill people too easily, more bad people will come to try and stop you. They don't want you to be happy."_

_"Can't I just kill them too?"_ the Boy asks.

_"In time,"_ says the Voice. _"You're smart, so you have to take your time. You have to outsmart them. Tell them that the man was being mean to you and that you didn't know what you were doing. They'll believe you. It's all a game, you see? You can't let them know what you're doing. You like games, don't you?"_

_"Yeah,"_ says the Boy, his face splitting into a smile. _"__The man was shouting at me. And then he was screaming. And then he was quiet. I liked that."_

_"Right?"_ The Voice makes a strange repetitive rasping noise. The Boy sits up at the sound, surprised.

_"I've never heard you laugh before,"_ says the Boy.

_"It's been a while since I've had this much fun,"_ it says.

_"This is having fun?"_ The Boy cocks his head.

_"Yes,"_ it says simply.

The Boy has never laughed before.

Experimentally, he opens his mouth. Urging sound up from his lungs, he tries to mimic the Voice's laugh. His voice is much higher-pitched and not as raw, and at first, it sounds strange and unnatural. But as he thinks back to the feeling he felt looking down at the man who'd been mean to him, a more natural sound starts to bubble up to his lips.

And then he is laughing, and laughing, and laughing. It won't stop.

_"That was fun!"_

_Hahaha…_

_"I can stop people from doing things I don't like!"_

_HAHAHAHA…._

_"And if I'm careful, no one will stop me!_

…_oh, I can't wait to do that again!"_

_HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA –_

* * *

**A/N:** loooooooool

So mobile-fanfiction doesn't support italicized fonts. This story uses a lot of italics so you should probably read it in on a browser format.


	3. Lauds

**Chapter Three: Lauds**

_Dawn_

* * *

When the Boy first comes to, he finds himself held down securely by metal straps on a cold table. He is in a large, dimly-lit windowless room. His eyes immediately snap to the sole door on the far side of the room. But between him and the exit, there is a line of masked ANBU guards. And besides the guards, a man with blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail looks impassively down at him.

He resists the temptation to ask the Voice on the situation. The Voice has told him that to escape detection, it has to return to the mental cage inside the Boy, and from there, it cannot talk to him. For now, it is up to the Boy to pull them through.

"What's going on?" he asks, making his voice quiver just slightly at the last syllable. But nobody answers him. The Boy focuses on making himself look as harmless and helpless as possible – an easy feat, considering how small he is. He notices a silver-haired ANBU, standing just behind the blonde man, shift uneasily.

Several minutes later, the old man arrives with an entourage of even more ANBU soldiers. His face is grim, and as he looks down at the Boy, none of the usual lenience is there. The blonde man bows his head in greeting.

"Report," the old man commands the blonde man.

"The boy was assaulted by Sato in a narrow alley, and seems to have reacted in self-defense," the man says curtly. "Then, realizing that he was being chased, he fled the village."

"The Kyūbi...?" murmurs the old man.

"I have found no memories of him interacting with the Kyūbi," the man reports. The old man's shoulders slump almost imperceptibly. "However..."

"However?"

"There are multiple inexplicable blanks in his memory that would be concurrent with a possible body takeover situation. If there are any weaknesses in the seal that was used to bind the Kyūbi within the boy..."

"None," the old man says, shaking his head. "I have checked the seal over myself, multiple times. It was done flawlessly. The seal is set to weaken naturally over time, but without the key, the Kyūbi cannot leave its cage."

"While it was out of self-defense, the memory shows that the boy was aware of his actions and derived pleasure from the incident. That kind of bloodlust is not necessarily uncommon amongst shinobi of course, but for a boy his age..." The blonde man turns to look at the Boy. "The Kyūbi's presence could be causing some mental instability."

"Naruto," the old man says quietly. With a weary expression on his face, he looks straight into the Boy's eyes. "Do you understand what you have done?"

Although the Boy may have once felt a certain debt to the old man for taking care of him, the Boy only cares about himself and the Voice now, so the lies surge to his tongue with ease.

"Was what I did wrong?" the Boy asks, his eyes widened slightly in a show of surprise. The Voice has long since taught the Boy the methods of deception. "He was hurting me. I didn't think I would k-kill him. I...I'm sorry."

The Boy is not sure if they believe him, but they stop probing his memories after that.

For a long while, the Boy is locked away from the rest of the village. During the time he is detained, he is held in an secret underground facility. He is released from his bindings but is kept in a sparsely decorated cell, with at least five ANBU on standing duty at all times. Several times a day, some white-coated doctors come to visit him and ask him questions about silly things.

"What does this shape look like, Naruto?" they ask him, holding up a white card with an inkblot on it.

_A mask._

"A butterfly," the Boy says.

"And this?"

_Two people with their head and legs torn off._

"Two people holding hands," he says.

"Very good, Naruto."

The entire time, the Boy cannot talk to the Voice, and against his will, he grows restless. He misses the Voice's company.

"How did you escape the village, Naruto?" a bespectacled doctor asks him, holding his hand gently as if comforting him. He thinks the Boy does not know that his finger is positioned directly over the Boy's wrist's pulse.

"I don't know. I was scared, and my body filled up with ad...adren...adrenuh..."

"Adrenaline," the doctor supplies helpfully. He then makes a slight gesture towards the nurse standing next to him, who scribbles something down furiously on her notepad.

"Yeah that," says the Boy, nodding.

By the time the Boy is released, all the tree leaves in the village have fallen, gathering in clumps of orange and red along the streets. He is escorted to his new home, which is located at the far reaches of the village – far away from the cluster of apartment complexes where most of the civilians live. And now, there are always ANBU watching him from a distance. Initially, they do not even try to hide themselves; they lie in wait on top of his roof, their pale white masks glinting sinisterly. Gradually, as if to induce him into a false sense of lull, they begin disappearing. But the Boy knows they are always there, watching.

One day, a few weeks after he has been released, the Voice returns. Unable to sleep, the Boy is listlessly looking out the window at the dawn sky when the unsettling silence is finally broken.

"_We did it," _whispers the Voice. At the sudden sound, the Boy's heart jumps to his throat, but without changing his expression, the Boy allows his body only an excited twitch of his fingers.

"_How did I do?" _he asks eagerly.

"_You did as best as could be expected. Well done."_

The Boy looks away from the window as his face flushes in pleasure. Suddenly, he remembers something he has been wondering for a while now.

"_Did you do something when that man was probing my memories?"_

"_I took all memories pertaining to myself with me while I retreated to the seal," _the Voice explains. _"Not even that jutsu can get past the seal without the key. They also tried to erase your memory of what they did to you. I blocked the jutsu, but you will have to pretend you don't recall anything."_

"_I didn't like that man. I didn't like any of them," _the Boy decides, narrowing his eyes. His fingers twitch again. _"I want to kill them. Can we kill them?"_

"_Patience," _growls the Voice. The Boy's face falls, and in response, the Voice's tone softens. _"We'll get there eventually. But as you can see, we're not strong enough yet."_

"_How can we get strong?"_

"_Training. I can train you to an extent, but you'll have to go to the Ninja Academy soon."_

"_Will they let me go?" _The Boy sighs.

"_We'll have to be on our best behavior for a while," _the Voice states simply.

But as it turns out, there is no need. The old man eventually visits the Boy again, and tells him that he will be enrolled in the Academy in the newest class.

So, the Boy begins to attend the Ninja Academy. And for the first time in his life, the Boy is no longer bored. For the first time in his life, there is always something new to learn, or something to work on.

Initially, the Academy lessons consist of learning how to read and write, basic math, and history. The Boy already knew how to read and write, and the math bores him – but he is intrigued by the history lessons. More specifically, the brief unit on past torture methods captures his attention. Whereas his classmates are all cringing in their seats, he is at perfect attention, his ears perked to memorize every last detail. The practice of prolonging pain to extract what you want from your victim seems a most rational idea to him.

After several months, the Academy curriculum finally turn to more practical lessons. To all of these, the Boy begins to apply what he has learned.

During a field trip outside the village walls in which they learn about setting traps and covering one's tracks, the Boy makes modifications to the basic snare trap that they are required to build. On top of the first noose, he adds a secondary noose that is released when the first noose is triggered; it will lash onto the victim's wrist. Theoretically, the momentum of the caught victim flying up will counter the secondary noose holding the victim down, and if the tree and wire are strong enough, the force should be enough to rip the victim in two. Even better, if he can somehow control the length of the wire while the victim is caught in the air, he can _slowly _rip the victim in two. The Boy unfortunately is not able to test it out on a human being, so he makes do with the entrails of several unfortunate wild rabbits.

The weapon-handling unit, he takes to with relish. After all, kunai and shuriken are much more practical tools than a plastic sand shovel for gouging out someone's eyes. After a lesson on human anatomy, the Boy begins to keep a mental list ordering which body parts will cause the most amount of pain but the least amount of blood loss.

The taijutsu unit on the other hand – at least at first, the Boy does not like it very much. Many of the children in his class are clan children, and have been trained by their families before enrolling in the Academy. They can go smoothly through a sequence of stances in the blink of an eye; compared to them, he is an awkward duck trying to learn how to fly.

The Boy does not like to lose.

When a brown-haired girl crows in victory after a bout, as the Boy lies face down in the dust, he makes up his mind to train harder.

But before that, he 'accidentally' fumbles a kunai throw, sending it slashing straight through two vital nerves in the girl's leg. The girl is carted away to the Hospital, a crying and bleeding mess, and doesn't return to the Academy until two weeks later, by the time which she has fallen behind the rest of the class.

The Boy does not spare girls.

As the years pass by and his class nears graduation, they begin to learn jutsu, and a whole new world is opened to the Boy. The basic jutsu they learn – Bunshin no Jutsu _(Clone technique) _and Henge no Jutsu _(Transformation technique) _– are interesting as possible escape methods, but the Boy is already salivating at the thought of the more advanced jutsu that await him. The Voice tells him there is a jutsu that lets you gather up chakra into a tight ball in your hand, which you can then use to slam into people's bodies and rupture their organs from the outside. There is a jutsu that lets you rip off people's skins and wear them over your own, a jutsu that you can use to summon a mist of acid that lets you melt a victim's flesh off their bones...the possibilities are endless.

Despite his fantasies, the Boy keeps his word and does not kill anybody. After all, it is unlikely that he even could have. The number of ANBU watching him have dwindled over the years, but there is still always at least one within a reachable distance.

By the time the final exam and graduation time finally arrive, it has been nine years since he met the Voice. He performs excellently in the exam, but because he has not always performed to expectation in separate units ("The test was to make a standard snare trap. This is not a standard snare trap"), he fully expects to graduate somewhere in the middle-rank of the class and get put on an obscure team with a pair of talentless nobodies. This is fine with him, as the Boy has little interest in being outshone by his own teammates.

To the Boy's shock, he is told that as a special ward of the old man, his graduation is to be put on-hold until the old man gives his permission.

The old man does not given permission.

"_But I didn't kill anybody!" _the Boy howls to the Voice, furiously stabbing a fat pigeon he found roosting outside his window that morning. Tufts of red and grey feathers fly everywhere.

"_It's not you. He's up to something," _the Voice grumbles sympathetically.

Sure enough, one of the other instructors of the Academy later approaches the Boy and tells him that if he is able to steal a special scroll of forbidden ninjutsu from the old man, he will be given permission to graduate.

The Boy does not believe this for a second, but the idea of a scroll of forbidden ninjutsu intrigues him enough to go after it. Entering the Hokage Residence, he skulks along the sides of the walls. Oddly enough, the premises are largely vacated and none of the watching ANBU stop him, telling the Boy that they are testing him in some way.

With a shrug, he snatches the big scroll from the storage and heads to the forest outside the village. Once he finds a suitable clearing, he settles down comfortably and begins to read.

The first jutsu is one called the Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu _(Multiple Shadow Clone technique) _which sounds interesting, but does not quite achieve the dramatic flesh-melting-off-face effect he is going for. It also seems to consume an ungodly amount of chakra.

Nevertheless, he reads over its theory and its practical application. He is about to move on to the next jutsu when he notices the instructor approaching him.

"Naruto, congratulations," the man says, with a congenial look on his face. "You can graduate now. Just hand over the scroll."

"Sure thing," says the Boy, rolling the scroll up. He tosses the scroll casually to the ground.

His face twisting into an overeager smile, the man steps forward to pick up the scroll.

With a snapping sound and a rustle of a bent sapling, the man flies up into the air, dangling from the noose secured tightly around his leg.

"What the – ?!"

"Oh sorry," says the Boy, looking up in faint surprise. "I forgot I left one of my practice snares here."

"Very funny Naruto...now let me down!" The man tries to sound amused.

"Sure thing," says the Boy, pulling down on a length of wire that is hanging down from the tree. Just as the man notices the other noose secured around his wrist, he lets out a yelp of pain as the strain on his body grows. His yelps turn to howls and soon, with a loud cracking sound, the man's hand breaks.

The man bursts into tears, but fortunately for him, the noose around his wrist slips loose and falls to the ground. The tension on his body relieved, the man's body swings slackly in the air. The Boy makes a disappointed sound, mentally noting that the snare does not work as well on grown humans as it does on animals. Or at least, the wrist is not optimal. He wonders what other body parts he could attach the noose to that will hold better – or alternatively, perhaps he should switch to a barbed wire? That would make the skin tear apart more satisfyingly. But which body part would rip off the easiest?

His eyes begin to trail down the man's torso.

But before he can let his thoughts run for long, he is interrupted as ANBU land silently around him. Several of them cut down the grateful, sobbing man from the tree and take him away. Several others escort the Boy back to his apartment.

The next day, he is told that he has graduated the Academy at the bottom-most rank of his class.

* * *

**A/N: **yeap.

**Edit: **Please note that the "watching ANBU" are easily visible to Naruto, but that is because he has the Kyubi helping him. They would not suspect that he could see them (while they're barely trying).


	4. Prime

**Chapter Four: Prime**

_Early Morning_

* * *

They say that traditionally, to balance the teams, the best and the worst of the graduates are put together on the same team. That is how the Boy, manipulated by the old man into being the 'dead last' of the class, ends up on the same team as the black-haired boy and the pink-haired girl, who both scored among the top in their class. Their teacher is a masked jōnin.

The Boy knows that the old man must have put him on this team on purpose. He passed the old man's previous test with the scroll, but he senses that his placement on this specific team must also be a test. So when the masked jōnin asks them to tell him about themselves, the Boy decides to go with the most laughable answer he can think of.

"My dream is to become the Hokage," he says poker-faced. The pink-haired girl scoffs, but the masked jōnin looks at him appraisingly. The Boy is amused to see just the barest trace of relief flicker in his eyes.

"_Let's see how the old man reacts to that," _he whispers to the Voice, who chuckles in response.

The jōnin tells them that their graduating from the Academy does not automatically make them genin, and that they must pass his test to truly graduate to the next level. At first the Boy wonders if this is the old man's true test for him, but the jōnin's 'test' is half-hearted, and they easily pass it within the hour. Thus, the Boy reasons that the specific team he was placed on is relevant to the old man's plans for him. He does not know much about either of his new teammates despite having been in the same class, so he begins to watch them closely.

The black-haired boy does not talk much. There are always a flock of girls surrounding him and trying to get his attention, but he does not pay them much mind. His facial expressions do not change much either; he always seems to be looking at something far off in the distance. The Boy vaguely remembers that several years ago, the entire village was in an uproar because most of the members of the black-haired boy's clan were killed.

"What's that you're reading?" the Boy asks. In a flash, the black-haired boy immediately puts the book away, but not before the Boy sees the title – 'Vengeance: The Ultimate Path to Power and Retribution.'

"Mind your own business," the other boy says coldly and slinks away.

The pink-haired girl is much easier to read. The Boy noticed her a long time ago when he saw her getting bullied by some of the other children, but she has changed since then. She is more self-concerned now, and is a part of the flock that is constantly pestering the black-haired boy.

"What's that you're reading?" the Boy asks. The pink-haired girl jumps in surprise and turns red. The Boy has just enough time to read the book's title – 'The Roots of Love: Herbs to Change His Heart' – before she slaps him with it. In disbelief, the Boy raises a hand to his stinging cheek.

"You creep, stop sneaking up on people!" she says shrilly before scurrying away.

That night, the Boy has to shackle himself to his bed so that he doesn't go out and ruin years of scheming by murdering her in her sleep.

And then there is the masked jōnin. At first, he does not seem to care about the team much, but the Boy can sense the man's eyes on him whenever his back is turned. The jōnin's primary expression is bored but when the man thinks nobody is watching, his face defaults into a quiet, contemplative expression.

"What's that you're reading?" the Boy asks.

"The answer to the meaning of life." The masked jōnin's fish-eyes do not even leave the page he is reading, and the Boy has to crane his head to read the title – 'Icha Icha Paradise.'

After mulling over his observations, the Boy concludes that for the most part, they seem to be a ragtag group with no ulterior purpose for being put together. But the Voice's reaction to the masked jōnin in particular unnerves the Boy.

"_Don't talk to him any more than necessary,"_ the Voice snarls when they are back in their apartment.

"_I know," _the Boy says. _"You don't like it when I talk to other people."_

"_This man in particular," _the Voice insists gutturally. The Boy pauses, surprised by the note of urgency in the Voice's tone. _"He's dangerous."_

"_Even more than the old man?" _The Boy is naturally intrigued.

"_Yes. Stay away from him."_

Despite the Boy's further prodding, the Voice refuses to elaborate anymore, so that is that.

Now that they are officially of 'genin' rank, the Boy and his team start doing missions. At first, they are given menial missions that irritate the Boy. Some require them to spend hours chasing down a domestic animal in the forest. Others require them out under the searing sun to watch over fields of crops and chase away crows. But the Boy suspects that the old man may be testing his patience and is just waiting for him to lose control, so he forces himself to endure. To his aggravation, his new teammates push the limits of his patience as the black-haired boy occasionally messes up a mission by doing things his own way while the pink-haired girl ignores both the masked jōnin and the Boy in favor of following the black-haired boy.

His wrists start showing signs of bruising as shackling himself to his bed becomes a daily occurrence.

But after a few months of grueling endurance, it pays off – they receive their first C-rank mission, which takes them on a low-key bodyguard mission outside of the village walls. Their client is a merchant who is visiting a minor harbor city along the borders of an island country.

After a long week of civilian-pace travel, they arrive at the city. Since they have to accompany the merchant back to their village, they are invited to spend a week at an inn at the merchant's expense. In their free time, the masked jōnin begins to teach them how to control their chakra flow by practicing tree-climbing in the surrounding forest.

To the Boy's annoyance, the exercise is harder than it looked. And even worse, the pink-haired girl is the best among them at it.

"This is pretty easy!" she gloats, looking down at the Boy from a high branch. The Boy rubs the bruise on his head and doesn't say anything.

"It looks like the best at controlling chakra right now is Sakura," the masked jōnin says in a bored voice as he hangs upside down from a branch. "Unlike you two, her control and stamina are quite good. As of now...Sakura is the closest to becoming Hokage, unlike a certain someone..." His eyes rest on the Boy's, before shifting over to the black-haired boy's panting figure. "I guess the Uchiha clan isn't worth much either."

The black-haired boy scowls, and the girl visibly grows agitated at the sight of her crush's dismay.

"Shut up sensei!" She stabs a finger furiously at the jōnin, who ignores her.

After just a day, the girl manages to master tree-climbing so she is allowed to accompany the masked jōnin as he carries out several other minor missions in the city.

Ignoring each other, the two boys continue to direct chakra to their feet and race up the tree, marking their progress with kunai.

"_Why is this so hard?" _the Boy grumbles, after falling down for the thirty-first time that afternoon.

"_Don't get so riled up," _the Voice instructs him. _"Relax and focus on the feeling of contact between the tree and your feet."_

Though the Boy makes progress – matching the other boy's progress – he eventually decides to take a break and relieve his pent-up frustration. Distancing himself from the clearing, he walks briskly through the thick forest. Keeping a keen eye out, he eventually spots clumps of pale fur littered across a pile of flattened grass.

With a smile, he stops. Kneeling down, the Boy reaches out and brushes away the fur and grass to reveal a nest with several small curled up furry bodies. They must have just been born, as their eyes are still tightly shut. Their mother hops around in agitation at his discovery, but he pounces on it, grabbing it by the ears. He then uses his kunai to slit its throat.

Without touching the babies, the Boy carefully dismantles the nest. Then, shoving his kunai deeper against its throat, he slathers some of the mother's blood around them in a circle. Taking a step back to admire his handiwork, the Boy hides behind a bush and lies in wait.

Soon, drawn by the scent of blood, a hungry-looking fox slinks into view. Catching sight of the litter, it perks up and bounds over to the nest.

"_Here we go," _the Boy whispers to the Voice in anticipation.

But just as the fox clamps its sharp teeth around one of the rabbits, a girl with long black hair suddenly bursts through a patch of bushes. With a yelp of surprise, the fox flees, its prize still dangling from its maw.

For a second, the girl looks in dismay down at the destroyed nest and the dead mother's body beside it.

"Why would you do something like this?" she says quietly, turning her head to look at exactly where the Boy is hiding. After a pause, the Boy shrugs and walks out of the bushes.

"What're you going to do about it?" the Boy says, cocking his head sideways. He is genuinely curious; the fact that the girl was able to approach without his hearing her implies that she has had at least some training. But the girl just gives him an appraising look, and then shakes her head.

"I'm going to take them, and take care of them," she says shortly. Kneeling besides the nest, she scoops the balls of fur into a woven basket. Before she leaves, she gives him a hard look, and he feels his fingers twitch. "If you try to come after me, I'll kill you." Silently, she disappears into the forest.

The Boy returns to the inn that day, rather put out at the loss of his source of entertainment.

During dinner, as the pink-haired girl alternates as usual between gushing about her experiences in the city and complimenting the black-haired boy, the Boy consults the Voice.

"_Why do girls talk so much about pointless things?"_

"_It's in their nature," _the Voice growls.

"_How do you get them to stop without killing them?" _The Boy stabs his fish with his fork.

"_You ask the impossible."_

The Boy sighs and is about to shovel another spoonful of rice into his mouth when the Voice speaks up again.

"_But...there is one way to break a woman's spirit,"_ says the Voice.

"_What is it?"_ the Boy asks.

So the Voice tells him.

"_I thought you said that that was fun?" _the Boy says after a pause.

"_Only when it's voluntary," _the Voice informs him.

Three days later, it is still early in the morning and the Boy is practicing tree-climbing with the black-haired boy, when the masked jōnin suddenly returns. He has a grim look on his face and is holding the pink-haired girl in his arms. She is conscious, but unresponsive; even when the black-haired boy approaches them to ask what is going on, she looks at him with dead eyes.

The masked jōnin only tells them that she was assaulted, before he disappears inside the house with her. The two boys look at each other, and follow him inside.

The girl is laid down in a futon and the masked jōnin makes tea in a kettle. Putting a cup of it beside the girl, he then tells the two boys to watch over her, and leaves with a dark look on his face. Settling down on mats, they silently keep vigil beside the girl, who mutely turns her back on them and faces the wall.

A short time later, the Boy's eyes fly open as an influx of memories suddenly rush into his mind, and he has to hold himself back from letting a gleeful grin contort his features.

In his memory's eye, he watches as several of his clones, transformed to look like nondescript scruffy young men, stalk the pink-haired girl. She is alone; they watch as she leisurely picks petals off of a flower in a small forest clearing. As soon as the last petal falls, she sighs and is about to get up, when she hears a twig snap. She freezes – and then they converge on her.

One of his clones holds the struggling girl down, while another stuffs a gag into her mouth, cutting off her screams. They kick and beat her for a while before a third clone suddenly leans over her and lowers his pants. Then, watching the wide-eyed girl as tears stream down her face, he takes her roughly. The sound of flesh slapping on flesh rings through the clearing and after several thrusts, the girl stops fighting. The tears dry on her face and she listlessly looks up at the overhanging branches.

When the clone is on the verge of finishing, he pulls out. The other clones tie her limp body against a tree while another throws a bucket of water at her, washing away some of the fluids that glisten on her skin. Leaving her drenched, they flee the scene.

"_That scroll really paid off," _says the Boy as the final memory flashes through his mind. _"Who'd have thought the Kage Bunshin could come in so handy?"_

"_Flawless clones. You covered your tracks well, mastered tree-climbing, and taught that vermin human a lesson," _the Voice praises him. _"Well done."_

The Boy flushes in pride.

Some time later, the masked jōnin returns with an unreadable look on his face and the next day, they quickly return to Konoha. The jōnin holds the girl the whole way.

Soon afterwards, while taking his turn to sit by the girl's bedside in the hospital, the bored Boy overhears the nurses talking about a bridge that was being constructed in the island nation that has been destroyed by gangsters.

For dinner that day, the Boy enjoys a bowl of ramen in his apartment and laughs at a comic he picked up at the hospital's gift shop.

* * *

**A/N: **I suppose if Naruto were to read a book, he'd be reading 'Villainy 101.'

Sorry if anything offended anyone. I did warn you he was going to be pretty morally reprehensible.

And I haven't responded to most of your reviews yet because I wanted to see reactions for this chapter first, so please have patience.


	5. Terce

**Chapter Five: Terce**

_Mid-Morning_

* * *

If the Boy had realized how long the girl was going to drag things out, he might have handled things differently.

The girl is discharged after a week in the hospital, and for a while, the Boy laughs silently every time she flinches whenever anyone touches her. However, the joke quickly gets old when he realizes that the chūnin exam is coming up soon: it's not that the girl has ever been really helpful on any of their missions, and he and the black-haired boy could probably handle the exam on their own – but unfortunately, only teams of three are allowed to take the exam. And the way the girl is now, it is unlikely that the jōnin will recommend their team for the exam.

All training sessions begin to go awry as the girl falls apart, and after one particularly trying one that is terminated before the morning is even done, the jōnin takes aside the two boys and talks to them privately.

"Sasuke...Naruto," the man says, his dead-fish eyes boring into them. "As the two of you know, Sakura is currently distraught. In most cases, it is important for a team to learn to overcome any obstacle together, but the current situation is extremely personal. It is regrettable, but there is a chance that she may have to abandon any hopes of becoming a ninja." He looks at the two of them, and the Boy makes sure to look suitably depressed. "For now, the two of you must be there for her, as her teammates. But at the same time, I do not want to compromise your own learning curves. You are both talented in your own ways, and I believe that you would perform well in the upcoming chūnin exam. If you are willing, I can arrange for a stand-in to act as the third member of your team in the exam."

The Boy discretely looks to the black-haired boy for a cue, but his face is blank and gives no answers.

"_Is this a trick question?"_ he muses.

"_Tread carefully," _the Voice warns him. _"Don't commit to anything just yet. What does the man want from this?"_

The Boy thinks over what he knows of the jōnin's personality.

"Is there anything we could do to help Sakura get better?" the Boy asks. The black-haired boy looks at him sharply and something flickers in the jōnin's eyes.

"What are you proposing?" the jōnin asks.

"We've come this far with Sakura...I wouldn't want to just throw her away right when she needs us the most," the Boy says in a hesitant voice.

"How about you Sasuke?" the jōnin turns to the other boy. He is silent for a solid minute before he suddenly nods.

"I feel the same way," he says, surprising the Boy.

The jōnin lets out a sigh.

"I don't think you realize what you're trying to get into here," says the jōnin, shaking his head. "While your peers take the chūnin exam and advance their careers, you will be putting all your time and effort into helping someone who might not ever get better. I know she is your friend, but you two also need to think about yourselves."

But the jōnin agrees to give them time to think over their decision, and in the meantime, training sessions proceed much in the same way as before. However, to the Boy's irritation, the girl's condition does not improve. Or rather, in fact, it gets worse: if anyone addresses the girl or accidentally brushes into her, she falls to the ground and bursts into tears.

By the time the week before the chūnin exams rolls in, the jōnin has given up on physical training for the team, and has turned to going over team tactics. This strategy seems to work, as the girl falls apart less and training sessions usually go as long as planned.

One day after such a session, instead of going straight back home as usual, the Boy makes a detour through the marketplace and picks up a box of instant ramen. On the way back home, he takes a shortcut through the village park. Whistling his favorite show's theme song and swinging his new purchase in one hand, he almost doesn't see the girl. It is only by chance that the breeze blows against his face, and he turns his face slightly to the side. When he does so, an unnatural flash of pink catches his attention.

"_Tell me. What is that human doing?"_ the Voice commands.

The girl is sitting on a bench with her head bowed, hiding her face.

"_I suppose she's still crying," _says the Boy, continuing to swing the plastic bag in a circular motion. _"Why?"_

"_Remember what I taught you about how to break a woman?" _the Voice says. The Boy nods, the memory still fresh in his mind. _"Now I am going to teach you how to bind one to you."_

"_Bind?" _the Boy repeats curiously.

The Voice tells him.

By the time the Boy approaches the girl, she has stopped crying, but her shoulders are still shaking. He silently sits down at the other side of the bench, and though she stiffens at his proximity, she doesn't move away.

"_A good sign," _the Voice encourages him.

The Boy mulls over what to say, thinking over what he knows about her.

He clears his throat.

"You know," he says. "Sasuke won't care if you're a virgin or not."

At first, she doesn't respond. She begins to sniffle again, occasionally pushing her hair out of tear-stained face. But after a few minutes, the girl finally speaks.

"That's not what I care about," she grounds out, her sentence punctuated by hiccupy gasps. "Now go away."

The Boy hides a grimace, and tries switching to a more light-hearted approach.

"Did you know? Your forehead is smaller than Ino's. I checked." The girl raises her head and looks at the Boy in disbelief. Having grabbed her attention however, he hurries to soften his approach. "Come on. Lift that head up. Tell me what's wrong?" The Boy tries to imitate the kindly reassuring tone of voice he has heard mothers use to their children. His intonation is a little off, but it seems passable to his ears.

For a long time, the girl doesn't answer, and the Boy is about to call it quits when she finally says in a quiet voice, "Everyone thinks I'm dirty now. I know it. They...look at me with these pitying eyes. My mom, my dad, Kakashi-sensei, Ino...Sasuke..."

Unable to help himself, the Boy rolls his eyes but the girl is too blinded by fresh tears to see it.

"Nobody thinks you're dirty, Sakura," he says dutifully.

"I'm dirty!" The girl suddenly screams hysterically, alarming the Boy. "I don't want to remember what happened but I dream about it every night now. My parents come into my bedroom when I'm screaming and they have so much pity in their eyes I can't stand it! But at the same time I want them to pity me...I'm disgusting."

"_You are," _the Boy agrees silently.

"No you're not."

"You don't understand...nobody understands..." The girl begins to moan pathetically and buries her face in her hands. "I don't know how to handle it. I can't."

The Boy silently counts to three.

"...when I was young, I was...special. I was kidnapped by ANBU," he says. The girl sniffles. "They took me to a secret facility and they conducted experiments on me...a lot of experiments. This here," He points out a small white scar on his inner arm that he got while trying to make ramen, "they burned me with heated metal bars to test my pain tolerance." The girl stills and her eyes widen. "And this here..." He points out several more scars on his body, making up semi-plausible stories for each.

"No way. The ANBU are here to protect us." The girl shakes her head, sending flecks of tears and snot flying. To his dismay, the Boy feels something wet splash on his face.

"O...orphans like me aren't so important to protect I guess," he says with a shrug, discretely trying to wipe his face on his sleeve. "Afterwards they tried to erase my memory, but it didn't work on me. At first, I tried telling a few people about it but nobody believed me...instead, they all called me a lying freak. So I've been keeping silent about it ever since...you're the first person I've told this to in years."

"Why me?" The girl's eyes begin to glisten.

He pauses dramatically.

"I thought you'd understand me," he says. "I thought you'd understand what it feels like to be helpless...what it feels like for other people to stare at you like you're a piece of meat and nothing else."

A lone tear slides down the girl's face and her mouth drops slightly open.

"I'm not saying I understand what you're going through right now, but I think we're pretty similar in a lot of ways. So if you feel like you're different or you don't belong or that you can't handle things. Just remember that I'm here, okay? I'll protect you until you're ready, no matter how long it takes. That's what teammates are for, right?" He gives her a small, hopefully winning smile.

It works.

The girl flushes and gawks at the Boy, who keeps eye contact for a few more seconds. Then he purposefully breaks it and gets to his feet.

"Well I have to get home now...not that anyone's waiting for me, but I do have my dinner to make."

"O-okay..."

He walks away, keeping a slow but purposeful stride. Just before he turns a corner, he hesitantly looks back and sees the girl still looking at him. Her face is pink and a glimmer of hope is beginning to flicker in her eyes. The Boy raises a hand in farewell, which the girl returns.

As soon as he turns the corner, his face twists into a wide sneering grin.

"_You were right. People are so easy to manipulate. Tell them what they want, and they'll become complete putty in your hands..."_ the Boy crows to the Voice, who just chuckles at him.

Two days later, the Boy sees the efforts of his hard labor already begin to bear fruit. The girl, though pale-faced, doesn't fall apart during training and the jōnin is so surprised that he doesn't even bother pretending to read a book like he usually does. Whenever the Boy 'accidentally' brushes the girl's hand or taps her on the shoulder, she turns as pink as her hair.

"_Her hair down there was a lighter shade though," _the Boy remarks in passing. _"Do you suppose the sun makes head hair darker?"_

"_I suppose we'll find out when you actually grow some."_

After the Boy drops some prodding hints, the girl insists to the jōnin that she doesn't want to drag the team down, and they are successfully registered for the chūnin exam.

* * *

Having let some of his expectations build up with all of the drama surrounding the events leading up to the exam, the Boy finds himself rather disappointed when he learns that the first part of the exam is literally a paper exam.

Having planted several clones disguised as generic chūnin around the exam site ahead of time, he raises his hand and asks to take a bathroom break. One of his clones 'accompanies' him to the bathroom, and once there, he creates several more clones, giving each one a specific question to find the answer to.

With that done, the Boy returns to his seat, twirling his pen to pass the time. Every time a new memory suddenly fills his mind, he jots down the answer to a question, and within twenty minutes, his exam paper is complete.

He passes the rest of the remaining exam time picking off some of the stupider genin around him by tempting them with his test paper.

"Number 23, you fail!"

"43 and 27, you fail."

"_I'm practically doing them a favor." _The Boy mockingly waves goodbye at the genin slinking out of the exam hall. _"They wouldn't last two seconds in a real fight...is this exam always this easy?"_

He doesn't expect the Voice to answer, but to his surprise, it does.

"_They haven't changed the exam since my last host took it."_

The Boy stops waving – it is the first time that the Voice has ever talked about what it did before it was sealed inside him. But when he hesitantly asks him about it, the Voice clams up and refuses to talk anymore about it.

Thankfully, the second exam promises to be more interesting, as it traps the remaining genin in the forest for several days in a test of survival and wits.

Barely five minutes after they have set foot inside the jungle of overgrown trees, they hear several agonized screams echo across the treetops.

"That...was a human scream, right?" the girl whimpers. "I'm scared." Trembling, she edges closer to the Boy, who casually brushes off her hand and steps away.

"I've gotta pee," he announces, and slinks away to a denser area of the forest.

After relieving himself, the Boy loiters around for a bit expectantly. He is not disappointed when a hand suddenly breaks through the surface of a seemingly innocuous puddle, and grabs onto his leg with an iron grip.

"_You were right. Someone was watching,"_ says the Boy, as he nimbly leaps up. For an instant, the hand's grip slackens in surprise and he takes advantage of it by bending over and slashing through the wrist with his kunai. The hand, still grasping on to his ankle, comes cleanly off. A cloud of red fogs up the puddle, and a gurgled scream bubbles up to the surface.

The rest of the body soon follows, to reveal a furious boy wearing a rebreather. Blood dripping from the stump on his arm, he hurls himself at the Boy. Easily sidestepping him, the Boy lifts a foot and kicks down the other boy.

Pinning him down to the ground with his knee, the Boy pulls the rebreather boy up by his hair and holds a kunai to the front of his neck.

"Hand over your scroll," he breathes.

"Don't have one," the rebreather boy spits out.

"Don't be like that." The Boy smiles, pressing the kunai closer. A thin line of red appears on the struggling boy's pale skin, and the Boy licks his lips. His eyes flicker to the rebreather boy's remaining hand.

"Naruto?" The pink-haired girl and the black-haired boy finally seem to have noticed their struggle and climb their way through the bushes just in time to see the Boy slash the kunai downwards at the rebreather boy's other hand.

However, the rebreather boy furiously struggles just as the kunai makes contact, and the cut is messy, spraying the Boy's face with blood. Roaring in pain, the rebreather boy flips his lower body, and kicks out at the Boy, who ducks. The rebreather boy flips through the air and lands on his feet, clutching on to his remaining hand, which dangles precariously to his arm by a few strands of skin.

The girl screams at the sight, startling the Boy, and the rebreather boy takes advantage of the opportunity to dash away.

For a second, there is stunned silence. And then –

"What were you doing?" The girl looks at the Boy in horror, and he realizes that his face is dotted with blood. The black-haired boy does not say anything, but from the way he is avoiding the Boy's gaze, he seems troubled as well.

"I was trying to pass the exam." The Boy tries to look upset as he raises an arm to wipe his face. "Or do you not want to pass? Were you lying when you said you wanted to help the team?"

The girl flushes as pink as her hair again.

"Of course I want to help the team! But – "

"But?" The Boy's arm drops to his side.

"But – you didn't have to do that!" The girl protests. "That – that was uncalled for!"

"You didn't even see the whole thing," the Boy says, cocking his head to the side. "What if he attacked me first and I retaliated?"

"You seem unharmed," the black-haired boy comments, and the girl mutely nods her head.

The Boy looks at her for a long moment, and then lets out a loud sigh.

"I get it," he says sadly. "You don't believe me either. You think I'm a lying freak too."

The girl gapes.

"What? That's not what I think!"

"All my life, everyone's only looked at me with eyes filled with disgust...just like yours. They think I'm weird – they think I'm sick in the head." With every biting word, the Boy takes a step toward the girl, who backs away. The whole time, she is wildly shaking her head back and forth. "You're just like the rest of them."

"No – no – " She trips over her feet and falls backward to the ground.

"You're no better than _them._"

The girl's eyes grow impossibly wide and she begins to shake uncontrollably.

"You – "

"That's enough," the black-haired boy cuts in harshly, finally stepping in. The Boy snaps his head towards the other boy, and eyes him balefully. The other boy coolly matches his gaze.

"_You still need them," _the Voice reminds him.

So after a few seconds, the Boy lets out a sharp bark of laughter, shattering the tense silence. As his laughter echoes through the trees, the girl grows still.

"I'm just kidding Sakura," he says lightly, smiling down at the shocked girl. His fingers twitch. "I know you're different from the rest."

The Boy wipes his bloody kunai on his pants, leaving a red trail behind.

* * *

**A/N: **A very conversation-filled chapter. And I know several reviewers have expressed the desire that I cut Sakura from the story but well...we'll see what happens.

I think most of you missed this but in the last chapter, the "girl" was Haku making a cameo.

I apologize for the delay. I was conflicted over the contents of this chapter (not morally, but in terms of story flow) – I actually had most of this chapter written a long time ago, but I let it stew for a while because I wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. I came back to it and I still hadn't decided, so I just decided to finish it and put it up...it was supposed to go on for a bit more but it seemed like a natural place to stop (?) so that's it for now.

Thank you to all reviewers!


	6. Sext

**Chapter Six: Sext**

_Midday_

* * *

Eventually, they decide to save the rest of their energy for the next day, and set up camp. The pink-haired girl gathers wood while the black-haired boy sets up traps around the vicinity, and the Boy wanders off to the river to catch fish.

As he spears at the quick flashes in the water with his kunai, he thinks it a pity that they don't have any pots with them. The Boy enjoys the occasional fish stew. It tastes better when the fish is freshly killed. In fact, he usually catches his own fish, and likes to keep them alive in his bathtub until dinnertime. When the time is ready, he moves the fish to a vat filled with water, and turns on the heat. He puts a lid on top of the vat, and then waits. After a few minutes, as the water begins to boil, the fish suddenly starts to vigorously flail and jump out of the water, hurling its body against the lid, trying to escape. But the Boy is always ready, with a firm hand on the lid, and the sounds it makes are like music to his ears. He fantasizes about it screaming, but of course fish don't scream.

The most violent thump is almost always the last. Afterwards, its tail occasionally brushes weakly against the lid – but it is nothing more than a corpse that has yet to realize it.

The resulting fish stew is delicious, although sometimes the Boy realizes that he doesn't feel like eating fish that night after all, and dumps the entire vat's contents into the trash.

"_That should be enough, right?_" the Boy ponders, looking down at the slick bodies strewed across the ground.

"_I used to feast on sharks and whales for dinner,_" the Voice says wistfully.

The Boy is entertaining the notion of whether he could fit a shark in his apartment kitchen, when something suddenly violently explodes in the direction of the forest – their campsite. Instinctively closing his eyes, he puts up his arms, blocking a gale of wind that has managed to come even this far out.

As he waits for the dust to settle down, he feels the ground below his feet trembling. Something rustles, and then he hears something that sounds like a tree creak and then crack.

The Boy opens his eyes just in time to see above him a cavernous mouth, a bottomless black pit with two fangs arching downwards like a gate. And then it lunges down on him.

He throws himself backward just as the snake's fangs plunge into the earth beside him – tearing his sleeve – and tumbles across the ground to his feet. Meanwhile, the snake pulls itself out, and rears back, its forked tongue flickering in the air.

"_I've never seen a snake this big before,_" the Boy remarks, taking in its size with faint interest.

"_It's a summon,_" the Voice tells him, and the Boy's gaze sharpens.

"_Someone must have attacked the campsite...someone who knew we were away._"

For a brief moment, the Boy wonders if he should let the assailant finish the job and save him the trouble of doing it himself – but then he remembers the look on the black-haired boy's face as he stepped in between the Boy and the girl, and changes his mind.

Taking a step back and digging his heel firmly into the ground, the Boy feels the now-familiar sensation of the Voice's chakra seeping through his body, as well as the itch in his eye that always accompanies it. He can feel it making him stronger – faster – unstoppable.

He tenses up – and just as the snake's tail lurches down toward him, he jumps, letting it crash into the tree behind him instead. Landing down on the snake's tough, scaly back, the Boy nimbly races up toward its head. Sensing him, the snake tries to shake him off, but when that fails, it begins to coil itself into a tight circle. The Boy missteps and lurches to the side; just at that moment, the snake's tail whips out, and grabs him.

As the Boy squirms in its hold, the snake lowers its head, its opaque eyes gleaming, its maw opening wide to swallow him whole – and then the Boy bursts into a cloud of white smoke, leaving the snake squeezing at nothing but thin air.

The real Boy, observing the action from the top of an overhanging tree, readies his hand, which has sharpened into claws. The snake flicks its head around inquisitively, and just as it catches his scent, he leaps into the air above its head.

Spiraling downward sharply, he feels its scaly skin give way easily under his chakra-reinforced fingers, and he bullets through its neck. For an instant, all he can see is red, and though his mouth is tightly shut, he can feel some of the warm blood flowing into his ears and nose.

And then the Boy breaks out through the front of its neck, landing on the ground with a slopping wet sound as the snake's head crashes into the ground thunderously behind him. Its body continues to wriggle on the ground, but he pays it no mind, and without pause, he races to the direction of where he heard the explosion.

Just as a line of shattered trees comes into view, the Voice suddenly roars at him –

"_**Stop!**_"

The Boy immediately freezes, the heels of his feet turning up so forcefully that they dig into the ground.

"_What is it?_" he asks.

"_Don't go in there,_" it growls, a note of urgency in its tone. "_It's too dangerous for us to handle._"

"_Even with your chakra?_"

"_Contained as I am in your body...yes."_

The Boy thinks it over.

"_If my teammates die, I won't pass the exam,_" he points out.

"_Do you want to die?_" the Voice growls. "_You __**will**__ die if you go in there as we are now._"

"_Die?_" the Boy repeats, his tongue rolling uncertainly around the unfamiliar word. He almost asks the Voice what that means, but of course he knows – it means the opposite of 'kill.'

"_You don't want to die, right?_" the Voice whispers. "_To avoid that, we need to exercise precaution around those that are stronger, until we are stronger than them. And then we strike._"

So the Boy waits in the cover of the forest. Even with the distance, he hears the sounds of battle, and then the black-haired boy lets out a scream – and then silence. After a few minutes, the Voice tells him that it is safe, and that the foreign dangerous entity has left.

What greets him is the sight of a large clearing that hadn't been there before, trees snapped like twigs at its edges, and the black-haired boy and girl are at its center. The other boy is twitching, and the girl is clutching at him, yelling his name.

The Boy touches down silently behind the pair. He spits out a globule of the snake's blood onto the ground, and at the sound, the girl twists around. At the sight of his bloody form, she lets out a high-pitched scream and hunches protectively over the black-haired boy.

"Relax, it's me, Sakura," he says soothingly, holding out a hand, palm up. Her eyes narrow suspiciously, but then light up in recognition.

"Naruto?" she whispers, her voice tinged with hope. She hesitantly reaches up with a hand, and he pulls her to her feet.

"Yeah," he says, shaking his hair, noting with amusement as some droplets of blood land on the girl's face. "What happened?"

"We-we got attacked by someone named Orochimaru...we fought back, but he was too strong..." Tears begin to well up in the girl's eyes, and the Boy cocks his head; the name is vaguely familiar. "He bit Sasuke! And Sasuke screamed and then he couldn't – couldn't..."

"And he just left?"

"He...he said that Sasuke would seek him for power..." The girl is starting to look even more upset, and eager to avoid having her cry again, the Boy puts an arm around her. But to his exasperation, the girl bursts into tears anyways, and despite having avoided him for the past several hours, she buries her pink head into his chest.

As he reluctantly pats her on the back, the Boy looks over at the prone black-haired boy and notes a swirling symbol on the back of his neck. Then he returns his gaze to the girl's head.

"Good thing you guys are still alive..." he whispers in her ear, smiling fondly. "_Since I'm going to be the one to kill you,_" he adds in a voice so quiet that even the Voice doesn't hear.

* * *

At the pink-haired girl's insistence, the Boy doesn't go out by himself to track down two scrolls (for it turns out that their scroll got taken by the assailant). Instead, he first washes some of the blood off in the river and comes back with the fish he'd left. Gutting the fish with his kunai, they chew on the raw pieces, and afterward, he sets up additional traps to the ones already in place that weren't destroyed in the attack.

They take turns standing sentry over the night, and well into the next day, nothing happens. But finally at midday, as the girl changes the cold compress on the other boy's head, the Boy idly throws a shuriken at a squirrel, and as he does so, he senses something.

"_Someone's here,_" the Voice warns him.

"_I know,_" he says, twirling another kunai in his hand.

They come out soon afterwards, a team dressed in snake-patterned clothing. At their head is presumably the leader, a lopsided boy with a straw raincoat on his back.

"Well don't you two look worse for wear?" he says, eyes wide open. "But don't worry, we're here to fight Sasuke. Wake him up."

"What's the big deal?!" the girl bursts out, hand leaping to her shuriken holster. "We know that someone named Orochimaru is orchestrating this whole thing from the shadows! What does he want from Sasuke?! What is this weird mark on Sasuke's neck? You did this to him, and now you want to fight him?!"

The newcomers look taken aback, and the one with spiky hair looks uncertainly toward their leader.

"I wonder what that man is thinking...?"

"But after hearing all that, we can't just let you go," says the spiky-haired boy, a nasty look on his face. "I'll kill the girl. And the short one. And also that Sasuke guy. I'll kill 'em all!"

"Wait, Zaku," says the leader.

"Huh? Why?"

The leader bends over and taps the ground, and the girl visibly turns pale.

"You're not very good...a recently overturned stone, different colored dirt...and grass doesn't grow here. A booby trap is pointless unless it goes unnoticed."

"Pfft...stupid," the spiky-haired boy snorts. "As if we'd fall for something so elementary."

"Kin...you kill the girl. Zaku and I'll kill the other one," the leader commands, and in unison, they all leap into the air.

The Boy steps back with a pleased smile. As the two lunge at him with their hands raised, he drops on all fours. His legs whirl through the air, shoving both of them on their backs. They stumble, and then with a snapping sound, there are twin yelps of pain as the two shoot up into the air, dangling from a barbed wire wrapped tightly around their feet.

The Boy has been itching to test out his snares again for a while.

"Dosu!" their female teammate shouts out, but is forced to turn her attention away as the pink-haired girl lashes at her with a kunai. Meanwhile, the Boy admires his handiwork as rivulets of blood begin to dye their clothing red.

"You think this could beat us?" the leader hisses out, raising his hands toward the branch they're hanging from.

"Well, yes, actua – " the Boy begins, but is cut off when the branch explodes into pieces. The two boys flip in midair and land (gingerly) on the ground. Baring their teeth at him, they raise their hands toward him, and he can see small holes in the middle of their hands. Falling silent, the Boy looks at them with a critical eye.

"_What was that?_" he asks. "_Ninjutsu? But he didn't make any signs._"

"_I don't know_," the Voice admits. "_Best to finish them in one blow before they can do anything._"

So the Boy surges forward, the Voice's chakra running through his body once more. A little irritated at the failure of his traps, he doesn't hold back, and an instant later, the two boys crumple to the ground, a kunai buried in the back of each one's neck. It takes several moments before their female teammate realizes. When she does, she lets out a startled scream, and without any hesitation, she abandons her fight with the girl.

As she tries to flee the clearing, the Boy throws a chakra-reinforced kunai at her, and it goes cleanly through the back of her head, leaving behind a small kunai-shaped hole. Her long hair flips up as the body falls to the ground.

The Boy bends over the spiky-haired boy, and begins to search his body. He notices the pink-haired girl looking at him with a blank look on her face.

"Are you going to say that was uncalled for too?" he asks her.

The girl doesn't respond.

"Because she could've been the one holding their scroll," he says. "Go search her body, won't you?"

The girl gets to her feet and complies.

* * *

The Boy collects their second scroll from one of the other teams of their year.

Leaving the girl carrying the black-haired boy behind, he touches down on the ground before the other team, startling them. In response, the fat one begins to puff up, and the blonde undoes her ponytail, but the shrewd one who's always looking at clouds stops them both and without another word, hands over to the Boy their scroll.

They reach the central tower without further incident, and spend the next few days camped out nearby. While the girl takes care of the black-haired boy, the Boy amuses himself by hunting down some of the other teams in the vicinity, though he decides to keep his distance from a boy with a gourd on his back and another one with white eyes that he knows could be troublesome to deal with.

On the fifth day, the Boy opens the two scrolls, and a chūnin materializes. He takes them to a large hall, where the old man who leads the village and a few jōnin are waiting.

It turns out that twelve people passed, and an entire team drops out on the spot, leaving the number at nine. The old man tells them that the third exam will take place a month from now.

The black-haired boy is given over to the masked jōnin, and the Boy is idly wishing someone would drop out to even out the numbers, when the old man instructs them to draw numbers.

The Boy pulls number 1, and is soon looking at a tournament chart with matchups. He is matched against the one who drew number 2, who turns out to be a boy with a bowl cut. And with that, the second exam is officially over.

Several days pass.

The black-haired boy is still in the hospital, watched over by the masked jōnin. The pink-haired girl trains with a female jōnin, and the Boy is finally left to his own devices.

One afternoon, as he heads to his apartment with a pail of fish (still alive of course) swinging in his hand, he takes a shortcut that takes him past the bathhouse. There, he sees a large man with long white hair and a scroll across his back, and suddenly, after an audible intake of breath, the Voice lets out a frenzied growl.

"_It's him..."_

"_What?"_

But the Voice ignores him for the first time in his life.

"_It's him...it's him, it's really...it's him it's hIM IT'S HIM IT'S HIM IT'S HIM IT'S HIM IT'S HIM IT'S HIM – _"

The Boy freezes, his eyes widening. His hands jump to his head, and he falls down to his knees. The metal pail drops to the ground beside him with a clanging sound, and the white-haired man immediately turns around, a suspicious look flashing across his face.

"_HE'S THE ONE WITH THE KEY THE KEY THE KEY THE KEY THE KEY THE KEY HE HAS THE KEY THE KEY IT'S HIM THE KEY HE HAS THE – "_

The Voice continues to scream gutturally in his head, and after a while, the Boy's eyes roll back and everything turns black.

* * *

**A/N: **I didn't want to spend too much time on the second exam (it was supposed to have ended in the last chapter), so I wrapped it up quickly without the preliminaries (Naruto didn't kill any of the other rookies - he knows it'd bring him more trouble than it was worth).

And last (but not least of course) thank you for your reviews.


	7. None

**Chapter Seven: None**

_Mid-Afternoon_

* * *

The Boy's eyes flash open.

The first thing he sees is a white wall and the first thing he smells is antiseptic, and for a fleeting moment, he wonders if he is back in the underground facility. But then he turns his head and sees a mop of pink hair resting on his bed, and he realizes that he is back in the hospital instead.

At his slight movement, the pink head shoots up; it seems that the girl was not sleeping. She looks back at him, a mixture of relief and apprehension interplaying across her face, neither emotion winning nor losing.

"Naruto, you're finally awake!"

"How long was I out?" The Boy experimentally opens and closes his hand, but nothing seems to be out of order. In fact, he feels even more rested than usual.

"Only a day, but you wouldn't respond no matter how much we shook or called out to you..."

The doctors and nurses are perplexed at his sudden recovery, but decide to attribute his fainting spell to the recent stress of the chūnin exam. On the way back to his apartment, the Boy learns from the pink-haired girl that in the short time he was unconscious, both the masked jōnin and the old man visited his hospital room. He wonders if they tried performing any more 'tests' on him.

"_What happened?_" the Boy asks, when the door slams shut and he can finally pretend that no one is watching him.

The Voice – which had been quiet until then – answers him immediately.

"_My excitement overwhelmed you. As you know,_ _we are connected, you and I. I feel everything that you feel, and to an extent, you feel what I feel._"

"_I've never passed out like that before though,_" the Boy says slowly.

"_I've been careful to reign myself in until now...but when you were still too young to comprehend me, you fainted quite often whenever I went into a rage. The old man feared your body was not a suitable host for me, in fact._"

Digesting this information, the Boy falls silent for a little while. Tapping his chin with a finger, he tries to think back to his childhood, but he cannot remember much. It is a soup of sounds, of the easing of screaming into silence – bright colors, and the red of blood dripping down someone's leg – and the sensation of wind on his face as he stands atop a roof. Suddenly, a memory of a hunched figure with long white hair flashes across his mind, and his finger stills.

"_Why did you get so excited?_ _You were talking about a key, weren't you?_"

"_Yes, the key,_" the Voice murmurs. "_That human, if I'm not mistaken, holds the key to your seal._"

The Boy's brows shoot up in surprise.

"_My seal? You mean the seal that's containing you within me?_"

"_Yes. And the key has the power to remove or further strengthen the seal._"

The Boy opens his mouth as if to speak out loud, but then closes it.

"_And you want this key?_"

"_I have always wanted the key,_" the Voice replies, and the Boy realizes this to be true. He walks over to his bed and throws himself down on it. Folding his arms behind his head, he looks up at the blank ceiling for a long time. The rays of the afternoon sun shine through the bedside window, lighting up a portion of the ceiling. His eyes are drawn to it, making out every single glinting dust particle. The Voice is quiet.

"_So...do we need to kill that man to get the seal?_" the Boy finally asks.

"_He's too powerful. We'll need to think of another way to get it from him._"

"_Alright then._"

* * *

As it turns out, there is no need for them to think of a plan to approach the strange white-haired man. The masked jōnin introduces them to each other, apologizing for his own lack of presence in the Boy's training (it appears that the black-haired boy has woken up, and is now being privately tutored by the jōnin).

"Naruto, this is Jiraiya-sama," the masked jōnin points to the white-haired man, who stares down at the Boy. The Boy stares back, still taken aback. "He'll be training you in preparation for the final exam."

"_Make a good first impression on him!_" the Voice says to him, so the Boy bows politely.

"Thank you, Jiraiya-sama. I'll be in your care." He tries to sound eager, without being overly so.

A look of surprise flashes across the white-haired man's face, and the Boy is trying to figure out what he did when suddenly, the man rubs the Boy's head with a massive hand.

"Say, Naruto...what do you say to going on a trip with me somewhere?"

The 'trip' does not take long; the white-haired man takes the Boy to the forest a short distance from the village gates. They come to a stop at a small cliff, and the Boy looks around the area, noting with a jolt the pond hidden behind a scattering of reeds and the thin waterfall that cuts through the rocks.

"_Have we been here before?_" The only times the Boy has been outside the village before have been during missions, and he wonders if he stumbled through the area during one of the more trying animal chase missions.

"_The cave we escaped to after you killed that human is not too far from here,_" says the Voice, its tone sharp. "_Stay on your toes. He's likely been informed about that_."

But it appears that the white-haired man had no ulterior purpose in bringing them there. Or rather, he seems wholly preoccupied by the women who are splashing at each other in the lake below the waterfall.

"What will you be teaching me today?" the Boy asks.

"Look down here," says the white-haired man, gesturing to the bush he is currently peering through. "What do you see, Naruto?" Dropping to his knees, the Boy describes the scene to the man, who nods in approval. "Good. And so today, I will be teaching you how to get what you want from someone, without their realizing it."

The Boy nods expectantly – but the white-haired man then returns his attention to the women.

Drumming his fingers on the ground, the Boy watches several pigeons flap by. A small rabbit pokes its head out from the thicket behind them; a stray dog with its ribs sticking out against its skin pounces at it but misses, swaying as it crashes into the ground instead. The rabbit disappears in a flash, and after sniffing and licking the ground for a few minutes, the dog slinks away as well.

"So Jiraiya-sama," The Boy rubs his fingers over his wrists, thinking back to when they'd used to be bruised. "When will you be teaching me?"

The man doesn't move, but after letting out a lewd laugh, says, "I'm teaching you it right now."

"Ah, I see." The Boy smiles pleasantly. It is silent for some time, interrupted only by stifled giggling and the sound of rustling leaves. Finally, however, it seems the white-haired man has had his fill of bouncing breasts. He gets up from his crouched position behind the bushes, and stretches languidly.

"Anyways...as you know, Naruto, you host the Kyūbi within your body," the white-haired man begins conversationally. The Boy's fingers twitch. The man dusts off his pants and then looks straight at the Boy.

"_Act dumb! Don't give anything away!_" the Voice hisses.

"Kyūbi? What do you mean, Jiraiya-sama?" Keeping his frame relaxed, the Boy cocks his head in an appearance of polite confusion.

The white-haired man's face doesn't change. He continues to regard the Boy with a strange look on his face.

"Have you ever heard its voice? Or used its power?"

The Boy's eyes narrow a fraction, and his fingers twitch again. He does not like how the man is looking at him. He does not like the white-haired man.

"_He's wide open. If we strike now, we can kill him,_" says the Boy.

But the Voice howls, "_He's deceiving you!_ _Don't fall for it!_"

The Boy hesitates; the Voice has never been wrong about anything before. However, he has come to realize that the Voice has not always told him the entirety of what it knows.

"Is that what the thing inside of me is called?" the Boy says at last.

"You're good," says the white-haired man, crossing his arms across his chest. "But you need to work on controlling that bloodlust of yours. I felt it flare just now."

"I'll work on it," says the Boy, his face going blank. The white-haired man reaches for him with his hand. The Boy tenses up, wondering if he is going to try and tie him up and take him back to the old man – but instead, he ruffles his hair again.

"Now that you've at least dropped some of your pretences, I'll stop pushing you about those things," he says. "For now, let me see your chakra control." The Boy has long since mastered the art of directing his chakra flow throughout his body, so he obediently steps out on top of the surface of the pond. His sandaled feet barely make a ripple across the water. "Very nice. You take after Minato in some ways."

The Boy wonders if the white-haired man wants him to ask who that is, but to his irritation, the man is not as easy to read as most of the people he has known until now. So with a mental shrug, the Boy voices the question.

"Who is that, Jiraiya-sama?"

"Hm?" It appears that a new group of women have come to the lake below the waterfall; the white-haired man's attention begins to stray once more. "Oh, Minato? He was the Fourth Hokage. I've heard you want to become the Hokage too?"

The Boy hides a smirk.

"Yes, it's my dream to become acknowledged by everyone in the village," he says.

"I see," says the white-haired man, but he shows no other reaction. "Now, while I do my research, I want you to keep walking on the water like that until you run out of chakra."

The Boy falls silent. For some reason, he feels like he has lost a battle – and the Boy does not like to lose.

He watches the white-haired man's back shake while he giggles lewdly to himself, and his fingers twitch.

He wonders what the man's screams will sound like.

* * *

Every day, the white-haired man makes the Boy expend all of his chakra walking on the water, and then afterwards, tells him to try using the 'other' source of chakra within him. He pretends to be unable to call on it, so after a while, they turn to practicing how to emit chakra through other parts of his body – and in this manner, a month passes by.

And finally, the day of the third exam arrives.

The Boy stands with the other remaining genins at the end of a gigantic stadium that is teeming with people.

"You fight until one of you dies or acknowledges defeat," the proctor explains. "But if I determine that the fight is over...I'll step in and stop it, you guys got that?" The Boy feels his lips curve up into a smile. "Now for the first fight, it'll be Uzumaki Naruto versus Rock Lee. You two stay here - and the rest of you, go to the waiting room."

While the others leave, the Boy and the bowl cut boy look at each other. The Boy has never talked to him before, but he recognizes him as the teammate of the one with white eyes.

"This is the first time we meet, Naruto-kun," The bowl cut boy steps back into a tight and well-defined taijutsu stance. "But I've been wanting to fight you since I caught sight of you in the Forest of Death."

The Boy doesn't respond. Instead, he falls almost languidly into a relaxed ready stance, with his knees bent and his hands slightly raised.

"Begin!"

The bowl cut boy doesn't waste time and immediately kicks off, hurtling toward the Boy with startling speed. Leaping up, the bowl cut boy twists his body in midair, leading into a spinning leg kick.

The Boy steps aside just enough, and the bowl cut boy misses, shooting past him. Immediately, the bowl cut boy spins around and dashes toward him again. The Boy focuses his chakra to his fingertips, shaping it into a form as sharp and thin as he can make it.

Just as the other boy is about to crash into him, the Boy flips up into the air, and spinning over him, he slashes out with his hands. The bowl cut boy's eyes widen; he twists to dodge him, wincing as the Boy's wind chakra cuts through the fabric of the back of his green jumpsuit.

They both land nimbly on their feet at the same time. The Boy's hands are raised, his wind chakra still rapidly spinning around his hands like claws. The bowl cut boy is slightly scratched, and small rivulets of blood are trickling down his back, but he looks none the worse for wear. He stares back at the Boy, focusing on his hands.

Without any warning, the bowl cut boy kicks off on his feet again, shooting straight for the Boy with a raised fist. The Boy ducks below the swung fist and slashes out with his hands, which manage to nick the other boy in the chest, ripping through the fabric. The bowl cut boy spins in midair, kicking out at the Boy; he parries with a raised arm, and then punches with his other arm. The bowl cut boy looks perplexed for a split second, as the Boy's hand does not reach him; but then his eyes widen, as several more cuts rip through the leg of his jumpsuit.

The bowl cut boy tumbles to the ground and somersaults back up to his feet. For a moment, he maintains his distance, looking a bit more wary of the wind chakra the Boy is emitting around his hands – but then once more, he hurtles toward the Boy.

"_You'd think he'd have realized by now that he should come at me with ninjutsu,_" says the Boy, dodging and slashing out again. "_He's not good enough to take me down close-range, while I'm using my wind claws. At this rate, he'll pass out from blood loss from all the cuts he's getting._"

The Boy emits his wind chakra like claws to the tips of his fingers, and can extend and shorten them on will. He fashioned them after the claws he develops when using the Voice's chakra, and refined them over the past month while working on chakra control with the white-haired man.

But the bowl cut boy continues to kick and punch at him continuously, in an endless barrage of taijutsu. After several similar exchanges, the Boy starts to lose patience, and when the bowl cut boy comes at him again with another spinning kick, instead of simply parrying, the Boy reaches out with both hands and grabs his leg. The bowl cut boy lets out a yell, as the wind chakra cuts into his leg; the Boy moves to throw the bowl cut boy into the ground, but he kicks out and spins through the air to land on the ground.

The bowl cut boy is starting to breathe more harshly, and his jumpsuit has ripped through all around his legs and arms. Nonetheless, he looks back at the Boy with fiery determination in his round eyes. It reminds the Boy of a cat he once chased before cornering against the backside of an alley – of the way it looked back at him right before he tore off another one of its legs.

He smiles.

The bowl cut boy lowers himself into another stance and the Boy tenses up – but before either one of them can move, someone shouts from the audience, "Lee! Take them off!" The bowl cut boy's eyes widen, and he begins to protest, but the person – a man who could pass as the boy's father – gives him a thumbs up. "It's alright! I'll allow it!"

Looking excited, the bowl cut boy bends over and in one smooth movement, he rips off a band that encircled his legs. They make a loud thunking sound as they hit the ground, and the Boy realizes they were weights.

"_As if taking off some weights will make a difference - "_ The Boy breaks off as the area in front of him explodes. Something black and green blurs in front of him – and then something orange flashes in front of his eyes, before the Boy feels something slam forcefully into his face, making a crunching sound. His head snaps up, and he feels his entire body careen backward from the kick.

The Boy feels sharp pain wrack through both his forehead and the middle of his face, and he realizes his nose has broken. Something is dripping down the front of his face, and when he wipes at it with his elbow, it comes away red. But before he even has the time to further react, there is another flash of green and then another kick is crushing into his chest. With only enough air left in his lungs to let out a small croak, the Boy flies through the air before crashing into the ground.

"_Move! He's coming again!_" the Voice shouts, panicked, but the Boy has barely just managed to process his warning before a punch slams into his face again. Staggering backward, he howls in pain as the already broken bones in his nose crack gruesomely in his ears. The Boy feels the wind chakra stemming to his hands fade away, and his hands scrabble at his face, smearing the warm blood all over.

Somehow, through the pain and the excruciating headache, the Boy manages to narrowly dodge another kick from the bowl cut boy and takes several leaps backward. His teeth gritted, he watches the bowl cut boy stare back at him calmly and seriously – and at the thought that once again, he has been backed into a corner, he feels something hot like fire flare up within him.

His fingers twitch.

Except for his very first kill, the Boy has not ever had to truly kill another member of his own species. His recent kills have been very prompt – a quick slash across their throat, a kunai through their head – as the Voice warned him against being excessive in front of watchful eyes. The Boy does not even remember the faces of the bodies he left behind in the Forest of Death.

But does slashing his hand through an artery even count as killing? The Boy doesn't think so. And if that's the case, then until now, his practice in the act of killing has been limited to the animals he has been able to get his hands on, whether it be a pigeon, a rabbit, a dog, a fish, or a cat.

Over his short life, there have been so many people the Boy longed to kill. His old caretaker, the old man, the instructor, the masked jōnin, the black-haired boy, the pink-haired girl, the girl in Wave country, the white-haired man...but always, he has been held back because of the knowledge of what will happen if he does kill them. It has been an ever-constant threat of glinting white animal masks and operating tables, and the Boy wonders, why can't they just leave him alone to kill who he wants?

The bowl cut boy takes a step toward him – and the fire explodes into a searing white wave that wipes away everything else, leaving behind only one thought:

"_This time...__I'm going to kill him."_

The Boy's hands drop limply to his sides. His head is bowed, and the blood on his face drips down onto the ground, one droplet at a time. The noise level of the watching crowd has reached its peak, as they shout bloodthirstily for the bowl cut boy to finish him off. The mid-afternoon sun sears the back of his neck.

"_Before he kills me..."_

The Boy can feel the Voice's chakra seeping rapidly throughout his body. It heals everything it touches; the pain in his face fades away as he hears the bones in his nose creaking as they reposition themselves and seal the flesh back together.

"_**I'm going to kill him.**"_

The Voice is shouting something at him, but the Boy is no longer listening. His body is light and brims with power, and he raises his head to match eyes with the bowl cut boy, who stares back at him with widened eyes.

In a kickoff that leaves the ground below him crushed inward, the Boy flings himself across the stadium floor at the bowl cut boy with his hands – sharpened now into real claws – raised. The bowl cut boy dodges him, and the Boy lands before leaping after him again. They are evenly matched now in speed, and for several minutes, they exchange a flurry of kicks and punches, each one getting hit equally – but unlike the bowl cut boy, the Boy's cuts heal almost instantaneously.

"**_I'm going to kill_ _him_.**"

Finally, the bowl cut boy seems to reach a decision, and throwing himself into the air, he plummets down at the Boy in a fierce spiraling attack that he knows, if it connects, could knock him out. The Boy doesn't hesitate – and it crushes into his body.

The floor around him gives way from the sheer force of the punch, and the Boy feels his ribs crack and then break. Something sharp – a broken rib – pieces into his lung, and he feels it collapse, leaving him unable to breathe.

A look of relief crosses the bowl cut boy's face – right before the Boy's hand shoots up into it and stabs him through the eye.

Blood spurts out and lands on the Boy's face. The bowl cut boy lets out a guttural scream of pain, and staggers backward. The Boy waits, unable to move or breathe – and then the chakra reaches his chest, nudging his ribs back into place and his lung re-inflates.

The Boy gets up to his feet and clambers out of the crater they have just made. He opens and closes his hand as the chakra passes through it, and the bones of his broken knuckle knit themselves back together.

The bowl cut boy is clutching at his ruined eye with his hand, and tears are running down the front of his face from his other. He steps back defensively as the Boy approaches him, and kicks out at him, but the kick has lost its power. The Boy grabs it – and with chakra surging through his arms and hands, he twists it sharply before letting it go. It makes a cracking sound, and as the bowl cut boy screams, his leg falls limply to his side – and the boy collapses down on to the ground.

The Boy looks down at the bowl cut boy, searching his face. But even through the tears and blood, the bowl cut boy looks up at him – with his one good eye – defiantly and determinedly. One thing is clear: he isn't going down with a fight.

The Boy cracks his hand.

"_**Lee**_!" He hears what sounds suspiciously like the pink-haired girl's voice. "_**Run**_!"

The Boy's fist slams down into the bowl cut boy's face with a crunching sound. The other boy howls out in pain.

"A favor returned," the Boy says.

"I'm...not going down...just yet – " the bowl cut boy speaks with difficulty, but is cut off by another punch. His head snaps to the side, but he turns it back up and looks straight back at the Boy. His limbs trembling, the bowl cut boy attempts to lift himself back up on his arms, but the Boy raises his foot and crushes his elbow.

The bowl cut boy falls back helplessly and the Boy pummels his face. His punches are so forceful, the bones of his knuckles crack again, but it is no problem for him, as they knit together almost immediately afterward. As flecks of warm blood spray at his already bloody face, he notices with delight how the color of the other boy's face is rapidly changing colors to purple and then to red and white as the shredded skin gives way to muscle – but then suddenly, multiple forces are forcibly dragging him away from the stilled body.

They flatten him against the floor, holding his blood-soaked hands behind his back. Other ninja are crowding around the other boy, who now resembles more a mass of bones and muscles and blood than a person.

The Boy giggles.

"_I killed him._"

* * *

**A/N: **Terribly sorry about the months-long wait. Things uh... happened.

Anyways about this chapter – I know some of you wanted Naruto to be more sneaky but he's really been holding back for a while now. It was about time for the dam to burst.

So! The end is nigh. Do ya'll want the good end, the bad end or the true end? CHOOSE NOW! (Though I'm probably going to write all three anyways).

**edit**: Note, I'm not saying that the next chapter is the last one, but that we're entering the last phase of this story.


	8. Vespers

**Chapter Eight: Vespers**

_Evening_

* * *

The Boy goes with them quietly, and they lock him in a separate room below the arena. It is empty and windowless; there is one door, and he can sense at least ten ninja standing guard outside of it.

The Boy's wounds have all healed by now, but his hands are still smeared with dark blood. He goes over to one of the blank walls and places his hand against it. When he moves the hand, it leaves behind a red stain in the shape of his hand. He giggles.

"_They're really underestimating us, aren't they?_" he says in a sing-song voice.

"_Or are distracted,_" the Voice answers.

The Boy draws his hand back again and punches, blasting a hole through the stone wall. He hears people begin to yell, and when the dust clears, he sees the masked jōnin waiting for him. The Boy notices that he is not holding his customary book in his hand.

"Naruto," says the jōnin quietly.

"Who is that?" the Boy says, cocking his head. The jōnin's eyes narrow.

"Kyūbi...are you controlling Naruto?"

The Boy blinks once – and then letting his head fall back, he guffaws.

"The Voice doesn't control my body unless I let it," he says in between laughs. "It's me...'sensei.' Have you found out the meaning to life, yet?"

"Who are you, then?" the jōnin asks instead.

Before the Boy can answer, he senses movement to his left – and dodges just in time to avoid some kind of net being cast down on him. He lashes out with a hand and stabs straight through the responsible ninja's chest. The ninja's eyes bulge. The Boy pulls out his hand with a squelching sound, and as blood spurts out, the ninja falls to the ground.

The masked jōnin looks pained. Then without any warning, he moves in a flash across the stone floor, reaching out to grab the Boy. The Boy ducks and kicks out, adding a burst of wind chakra to his feet; the jōnin flips back defensively. Taking advantage of the split second, the Boy turns around and begins to run in the opposite direction.

With the Voice's chakra running as a strong current through his entire body, his senses have never felt so alive. As he runs through the hallway, the Boy can sense every single being in that arena. They have not halted the third exam, it seems – in the middle of the arena, he can sense that the boy with black hair is fighting with the boy with a gourd on his back. The bloodlust is thick, reaching all the way to where the Boy is.

The pathway quickly slopes up, and the Boy jumps out to smell fresh air. He takes a swift look around, and finds himself just outside the arena. The backs of the stands reach upward in front of him.

"_The man with the key is not here_," the Boy notes. His eyes flicker downward, but the jōnin does not emerge from the pathway after him. It seems that for some reason, he is not being chased.

"_Then we must find him_," the Voice says impatiently. "_And get the key from him._"

"_How?_"

"_We can't kill him, but we may be able to force the key from him." _But it sounds uncertain.

"_And if we do get it...then what?_"

"_Then we will be free,_" the Voice says simply."_We will be able to do anything we like, go wherever we want._"

"_Wherever we want?_" the Boy repeats. He tries to think about what he likes to do that he'll be able to do outside of the village – but then he stops, and then turns to look at the arena. The commotion has stopped, and the arena is wrapped in silence.

And then suddenly, with an ear-splitting booming sound and an explosion of roiling white clouds, three gigantic snakes – exactly the same kind as he'd faced off against in the forest for the second exam – appear just outside the village walls.

The Boy cocks his head curiously.

"_Is that from the same dangerous thing you told me not to fight in the forest?_"

"_That seems to be the case. Don't go near it,_" the Voice warns him.

Soon, a barrier is erected on top of one of the towers, and to his glee, the Boy can sense both the dangerous presence and the old man inside it. That, at least, means two fewer things to avoid while searching for the white-haired man.

Meanwhile, it is chaos in the village. Several ninja from other villages have climbed over the walls along with the snakes and are wreaking havoc. There are fires everywhere, and the village people have split into groups that are either fighting against the enemy ninja, working to actively take out the fire, or evacuating civilians and children.

It is the perfect time to take advantage of – but despite the Voice urging him to start his search, the Boy can't help himself. He revels in his freedom.

While taking in the various battles occurring throughout the village, the Boy jumps up to his feet, excitement bubbling in his throat. He looks around – and then experimentally, he throws himself into the air with a loud whoop. He soars through the air and then lands down hard on the terracotta tiles of a building's roof, sending pieces of it tumbling over the edge. But of course, nobody pays him any mind. For the first time, the ever-present feeling of being watched is gone, and he jumps to the next roof with another delighted whoop of laughter – and the next.

Suddenly, just as he is about to jump to another roof, through the corner of his eyes, he sees a blur of movement – a ninja with his face wrapped in bandages jumps at him out of seemingly nowhere. Just before he reaches him, the Boy flips onto his hand, raising his legs into the air. The ninja slides across the roof and with a flash of metal, throws a kunai at him. The Boy twists on his hands to avoid it, and then moving faster than the other ninja can react, wraps his legs around the man's neck, choking him. The Boy lifts himself up so that he is sitting on top of the other ninja's shoulders, and then with chakra-effused hands, he twists the ninja's head. With a final surprised gurgle, the bones of the ninja's neck crack, and some of it pierces through the skin, poking out whitely under the sun.

The ninja's body collapses under his weight, and with a contemplative look on his face, the Boy remains seated on top of it with his legs crossed. He looks out at the village, the smoke-tinged evening wind blowing his hair against his face.

"_Regardless of whether we can get the seal or not, we're going to have to leave, aren't we?_" he asks the Voice.

"_Prematurely or not, they know your true nature now,_" the Voice answers him in a displeased tone. "_If we stayed, they would lock us up – this time in a cage you can't lie or punch our way out of."_

"_What's out there?_" The Boy wonders, thinking back to the time they'd gone to the island nation.

"_Animals you've never seen before. Fields of ice, mountains that belch fire. Secret techniques that can dismember a human into bite-sized pieces or control them like little puppets. When you're a little bit older, there'll be plenty of women to pleasure yourself with. And best of all, nobody around to monitor or stop us from doing whatever we want._"

The Boy thinks it over and then stands up. He opens his mouth to laugh – but stops. What is he feeling? He doesn't know. He knows he is supposed to laugh when he is having fun, but this isn't something he would call 'fun.' It is a different feeling. It isn't bad, but it feels strange to him.

Before he can put more thought into it, he senses something nearby and looks in its direction. It is nearby the snakes – by this point, they have crossed past the walls into the village itself, sending rubble flying with every thrash of its tail.

"_The man with the key is there, isn't he?_" the Boy asks, but he doesn't need the Voice's confirmation. He kicks away the corpse at his feet – it tumbles over the rooftop along with several pieces of tile – and then jumps.

* * *

By the time the Boy catches up, the white-haired man has just crushed the head of one of the snakes with a giant toad summoning – and along with it, a good portion of one of the village's bigger buildings. With a loud crashing noise, the building begins to fall apart. The surrounding ninja stare up, aghast, while the white-haired man strikes a pose and roars out his name.

The Boy lands on top of one of the nearby intact buildings, and stumbles, catching the white-haired man's attention.

"Naruto?" the man says, looking surprised.

"Jiraiya-sama," he calls out, grimacing in pain. "Please...help me..."

"What's going on?" The white-haired man looks taken aback, all the cheer fading from his face.

"It won't stop...the Voice..." The Boy winces, and squeezes his temples with his hands. "It won't stop - stop screaming at me. It wants something..."

"Something? From me?"

"The...I think it's saying...'the key'..." The Boy lets out a groan and falls to his knees.

The white-haired man falls silent, and the Boy hopes he hasn't overdone it. Despite himself, the Boy sneaks a glance up at his face. The other man is still, but his face has a shadow of uncertainty, and the Boy has to hold himself back from crowing in triumph.

"How long has this Voice been talking to you, Naruto?"

"My whole life..." the Boy says quietly. He knows from experience that the best lies come from truth. "But it's never been this bad before. I can't take this much longer, my head feels like it's going to explode." A single tear begins to roll down his cheeks.

"Do you feel any remorse at all for what you did to that other boy?"

The Boy's finger twitches; that's a loaded question if he's ever heard one. His mind races through the possible answers, searching wildly for the 'correct' one, before it grasps one. If he were being questioned by anyone else, he may have tried to bluff his way out of it by pretending to be ignorant, but in this case...

"I don't," the Boy admits. "I...I know I'm twisted, Jiraiya-sama. But surely, there are many like me out there..."

"There are." The white-haired man nods. "And from my experience from dealing with such people, my gut tells me you're lying about why you want the key." Inwardly, the Boy frowns, and the Voice growls irritably in his head. But then the man continues, "However...Kakashi seems to believe in you. And I would like to believe in the son of Minato."

The Boy's head snaps up.

"Then...then you'll...?"

"Let me tell you one thing, Naruto," says the white-haired man. "The key can be used to remove the seal, but it can also make it stronger. It could even stop the Voice from being able to whisper in your head the way it's doing now. You could be free, Naruto. It will be your choice."

"Anything, Jiraiya-sama..." the Boy whispers. "Just make it stop."

"Very well...but on one condition."

The man stops talking, looking out at something for a moment. The Boy follows his gaze to see the carved mountainside behind the village.

"A condition...?"

"There is another boy here, with a tailed beast sealed inside him like yourself. I reckon you know who I'm talking about?" The Boy nods; it is the boy with the gourd, the sand boy. "He's on the run, and from what I've heard, your teammates and some other genin have gone after him. I want you to help. When you come back, I'll give you the key to the seal." The white-haired man levels him with a knowing look. "I suppose the voice in your head can shut up long enough for you to do that?"

* * *

It is no easy task tracking them down through the thick forest surrounding the village, even with his senses magnified by the Voice's chakra. The forest is soaked with blood lust and here and there, the Boy can see bits and pieces of body parts strewn across the floor. But oddly, the Boy can sense the sand boy from all the way deep inside in the forest – it feels almost akin to his own presence when he is using the Voice's chakra. Traveling across the tree branches at an inhumane speed, he shoots directly toward it.

The desperate look on his face has long since faded. The Voice is muttering calculatingly about the white-haired man's true intentions – "_This is too good to be true. He's definitely plotting something" – _when the Boy senses the pink-haired girl just in front of them. He is about to pass her by without a second thought, when he remembers that the white-haired man told him to 'help' his teammates. So, he slows down and falls into place beside her; the girl jerks back.

"Naruto! Where did you...?!" The girl looks taken aback, but oddly enough, she doesn't seem too afraid of the Boy.

"I'm here to help," he says simply.

"Did...did Kakashi-sensei send you?"

The Boy is unsure of how to respond, so instead, he asks her, "What happened after my match?"

"Kakashi-sensei went with you when you were...taken away. And then it was Sasuke-kun's match against Gaara. But then someone cast a genjutsu over everyone - and then the Suna attacked us." The girl sounds upset. "Kakashi-sensei came back and helped us, and then we were told to pursue Gaara."

The Boy has to wonder at the logic of sending a group of mostly incompetent genin after such a potentially dangerous figure, but suddenly, the blood lust spikes, higher than he's ever sensed before.

"Where is the other boy?" The Boy asks.

"The other boy? ...you mean Sasuke-kun? He - he went ahead of us, Shikamaru bought us some time but - " She cuts off, as something nearby roars in an inhumane voice, the sound reverberating through the hollows of the trees. "What was that? Is Sasuke-kun going to be alright?"

The Boy, unable to help himself, turns to her and gives her a sad smile.

"It's always about him in the end, isn't it?"

"Wh...what?"

"I thought we had something, you know. I...thought you'd be on my side, Sakura," he says. "But you never were, and never will be." Her eyes widen so wide, he can see himself reflected back in their pupils. He knows that she is thinking back to his match in the arena when she'd called out to the bowl cut boy to run.

"Naruto, I - "

Leaving her faltering behind, the Boy picks up his speed, the trees becoming a blur as his sad smile gives way to a grin.

Soon enough, he sees the black-haired boy struggling to lift himself up on a wide, flat branch. Something that vaguely resembles the sand boy is heading straight for him, a long monstrous hand poised to crush him against the tree. His focus is so wholly fixated on the black-haired boy that it doesn't even notice the Boy barreling toward him.

The Boy kicks powerfully at the extended arm of the sand boy – and if it were any other person, it would have snapped it in two, but in this case, the sand boy simply falls back with a roar. The sand boy, like a confused mutt, shakes his head wildly before refocusing on the Boy's face. Recognition glints in his half-morphed face, and he growls out, "You!"

"_Why does he look like that?_" The Boy gazes down upon him with interest. When he uses the Voice's chakra, he knows that his features sharpen to take on some fox-like characteristics, but his body parts have never deformed to such an extent.

"_That is a partial transformation_." The Voice sounds also intrigued, which is rare. "_Except that jinchūriki isn't using chakra. It looks like sand._"

"You!" the sand boy roars again. "You're the one I wanted to kill...!" His arm extends out in anticipation and his muscles tense as he prepares to spring himself forward. The Boy reads all this and readies himself, his hands sharpening into claws by his sides. He regarded the sand boy as dangerous before, but the way he is now – practically foaming at the mouth with only half his prior cognitive abilities – he may as well be a rabid animal. "Die!"

As he predicted, the sand boy throws himself in a mad lunge toward him. The Boy waits, his claws twitching.

Then without warning, the pink-haired girl suddenly jumps in front of him, her arms spread open protectively.

"I'm always on your side, Naruto!" she shouts out, looking back at him with a fierce expression on her face.

The expression quickly crumbles, however, when the Boy's face splits into an amused smile. He hears her heartbeat momentarily come to a stop.

"_I'd have liked to kill her myself but this isn't such a bad way to go about it,_" he remarks as he watches the sand boy bearing down on them.

* * *

**A/N: **One more chapter to go, and then the three alternate endings. Yes, I decided to write out all three. Sorry, I did say from the very beginning that this was going to be a short series.

Thank you all for your reviews.


	9. Compline

**Chapter Nine: Compline**

_Night_

* * *

As the pink-haired girl's face takes on a look of horror, she unconsciously lowers her guard.

"Sakura!" the black-haired boy howls, but it is too late.

The sand boy's massive clawed hand rapidly rip through her like paper. They puncture through the front of her chest, and then rip out through the back, making an audible tearing sound. The girl lets out out an agonized scream, but then chokes on a glob of thick blood. She thrashes for several seconds and the Boy is entranced by the flailing limbs that to him, resemble an eerie sort of dance. More blood spurts out from the raw flesh jutting out around the claws.

Just as quickly however, the claws withdraw. For a second, through the gaping holes left behind in the girl's body, the Boy glimpses the sand boy grimace in pain, but then the girl collapses in front of him. The sand boy, for some reason, is gripping at his head with his other hand, mumbling nonsense to himself.

Taking advantage of the lapse, the black-haired boy rushes to the pink-haired girl's side. As soon as he sees her torn up body, his eyes widen in shock. He turns his head away and vomits, the slimy liquid dripping like oil from his lips.

The girl is almost gone. Her hands and feet are twitching but she no longer seems to be in pain, as her face has sagged into relief. Her mouth opens and she tries to speak, but she can only make a garbled sound. Likely, her lungs have collapsed. Slowly, her slightly bulging eyes inch up to where the Boy is silently looking down at her with a blank expression on his face. A lone tear rolls out.

And then like a final exhale, her entire body relaxes in death.

* * *

When the Boy returns his attention to the sand boy, he is taken aback to see that he has transformed even further. Both arms are now covered with sand, ending in a pair of massive claws. A single tail juts out from behind, and the sand boy's face is almost unrecognizable. The only thing that remains of his original face is the tattoo of 'love' on his forehead. The sand boy rears his head back and begins to laugh maniacally.

"The girl tried to protect you and died for it, but none of that will matter because I'll kill the two of you now! Where is your love now?"

The black-haired boy gets up, his face murderous, but he staggers on his feet. He is clearly not ready for round three with the sand boy; he is already completely drained from their fight in the arena and the following fight in the forest.

"'Love'?" the Boy repeats, cocking his head.

"She was weak!" the sand boy roars, his voice more beast than human. "But you understand me, don't you? After all, we have the same eyes, you and I..."

"I'm going to kill you," the black-haired boy spits out. Taking an unsteady step forward, he grasps his left hand with his right. Black flame-like symbols spread across his face and arm. A loud chirping sound fills the air as something bright blue begins to crackle in his hand.

"Love only yourself! Fight by yourself!" the sand boy snarls. "Only then can you be strong!"

His face contorted with anger, the black-haired boy screams again, "_**I'm going to kill you!**_"

He hurtles himself at the sand boy, the chirping chakra crackling around him wildly like a warning. The sand boy lunges forward as well, his clawed hand shooting toward the black-haired boy, who manages to evade it just in time. Instead, the sand boy crashes through a tree with a loud cracking sound; a cloud of dust erupts, as wooden fragments fly everywhere.

"_What do we do?_" the Boy asks the Voice, crossing his arms to stretch them. The black-haired boy has activated his jutsu again, and is running toward the sand boy, who bares his teeth. "_He's going to die, isn't he? Unless we do something._"

"_If both your teammates died, it would look too suspicious_," the Voice agrees.

"_Even though I'm not even the one who killed them,_" the Boy grumbles.

The Voice's chakra runs through his body, and tensing up, he leaps into the air. Below, the black-haired boy is panting heavily and a thin stream of blood is trickling from his nose. The sand boy has transformed even further, and is now unrecognizable as a human being; accordingly, his strength and speed seem to have grown exponentially, for even the Boy is finding it difficult to track his movements.

"_The way we usually do it won't be enough,_" the Voice warns him, as they land on a branch just above the other two. "_You'll need to transform to an extent as well._"

"_Transform? How?_"

"_If you'll let me control your body, I can do it for you._"

The Boy hesitates.

"_I..._"

"_Have you forgotten?_" the Voice whispers. "_If you want to keep having fun, all you have to do is listen to me._" Below them, there is a loud exploding sound as the sand boy manages to pin down the black-haired boy against a tree, which caves in from the force. The black-haired boy's body goes limp. The sand boy lets out a rumbling roar of maniacal laughter, and raises another arm to deliver the final blow. "_This is a game, remember?_"

"_Yes,_" says the Boy.

Immediately, as a curious sensation runs from his head to the rest of his body, he drops down on all fours. He can feel the Voice's chakra run through his veins, in greater quantity than ever before. If it were a trickle before, it is now a churning river, twisting and turning, before disappearing over a steep cliff as an immeasurable waterfall...

The Boy is distinctly aware of multiple tails sprouting out from his back, but he is no longer in control of his body. He sits in a cage that floats in an abyss of nothingness. It is pitch white, like newly revealed bone.

From there, as if watching from a distance, he sees his body tackle the sand boy. Letting out a surprised grunt and winded by the blow, the sand boy releases the black-haired boy, who drops limply down to the forest floor.

Shaking his head, the sand boy turns to face the Boy's body. His inhumane eyes glint bloodthirstily and he raises his clawed arms. The sand explodes forward, extending to impossible lengths as they shoot straight for the Boy's heart.

Effortlessly, the Boy's body dodges the attack – the claws crash into a tree instead, effectively destroying it – and then bounding forward on all fours, the nine tails behind him extend and dive down at the sand boy, each one as sharp and deadly as a thousand kunai.

The sand boy tries to dodge, but there are too many tails, and three of them carve straight through his legs and arms. A matted, dark mixture of sand and blood explodes out from his wounds and the sand boy lets out a howl of agony. He crashes to the ground, thrashing, sand leaking out from his body.

The Boy's body lands on a branch still on all fours, looking down at the sand boy. The sand boy looks up, his face contorted with hatred. Meeting the Boy's eyes, the sand boy opens his maw and lets out a monstrous scream of defiance.

The Boy's body steps off, hurtling down at the sand boy, his tails extending out in front of him once more to deal the finishing blow. His speed picking up with every second, the wind flies in his body's face. Even from the distance, he can see that sand boy's eyes are black, with a yellow pupil floating in their centers.

And then the Boy's tails pierce through the sand boy.

As a shower of blood rains down on the Boy, dripping down on his face and body, the sand boy collapses. The sand falls off of his body in great chunks, leaving behind just his original body.

The sand boy is bruised and bloody, but his chest still rises and falls. His eyes are closed.

The Boy feels himself being lifted out of the cage as he regains his control over his body – and suddenly, he is looking straight down at the sand boy instead of from a distance.

"_Should we kill him?_" the Voice asks."_He's a jinchūriki like yourself._"

Without answering, the Boy raises his foot over the sand boy's head. Directing the last of the Voice's chakra to his foot, he sends it crashing down. There is some resistance, but with a splitting sound of bone cracking, he smashes in the sand boy's head. When he removes his foot, he can see black blood and grey brain matter on his sole.

The sand boy's face is forever unrecognizable now.

"_So that's what it looks like inside an animal's head_," the Boy says.

* * *

When the Boy drops down to the forest floor, he quickly spots the black-haired boy lying unconscious against a half-splintered tree. He lifts him up, throwing the other boy's arm around his shoulder; the other boy lets out a moan.

The Boy is about to go, when a sudden thought hits him. He looks around, but all he can see is a newly created forest clearing, with shattered tree fragments strewn across the ground.

The summer sun has almost set, and the darkness of night has begun to creep in. The last rays of sunlight have bleached the sky a deep dark red and purple. The forest treetops are usually dense enough to block all light from reaching the forest floor, but thanks to the new destruction, faint, glowing light has made its way down to where he stands. As he looks up, it illuminates his face.

"_What are you looking for?_" the Voice asks.

* * *

**A/N: **Three endings coming your way soon.


	10. Matins

**Matins**

_Midnight (pt.3-1)_

_ "Good" End _

* * *

"_The body,_" the Boy replies to the Voice's question. Casting his eyes around, he climbs up the nearest tree, making each step with practiced surety.

As he climbs, all sorts of images flash through his mind.

He thinks back to the time when he was released from investigation, when autumn leaves rolled past like waves on the pavement and when white masks blinked out of existence like dying fireflies.

He recalls the Academy instructor who tried to trick him, but who ended up dangling like a puppet from a tree. He remembers the sound of the irregular pulse rate of the girl holding rabbits in her arms, and the sensation of thick snake blood in his mouth, the iron aftertaste stronger than any bowl of ramen he's ever tried.

The banging of a fish against a boiling vat lid in its final death throes. The smell of antiseptic. The sound of his knuckles cracking against a mass of flesh and muscle and blood. The sensation of wind on his face as he stands atop a burning world.

But as he has come to realize over the years, this world he knows is surrounded by walls. It is but a small piece of a bigger world. There is more out there.

_I want to see it_, the Boy thinks to himself.

The pink-haired girl's mangled body is midway up the tree, hanging dangerously over the edge of a flattened branch. He picks it up, haphazardly throwing one of its arms around his other shoulder.

On his way back to the village, the Boy passes by several others, who are apparently combing the immediate vicinity in search of any injured who may have been left behind. One of them is the masked jōnin. When he sees the girl's body on the Boy's shoulder, he grows very still.

"Was it Gaara?" is the only thing the jōnin says, and the Boy nods somberly. He hands the body over to the masked jōnin, who holds her to his chest the rest of the way back to the village.

* * *

"So you're back," says the white-haired man. The Boy notes that he looks more tired than he's ever seen the man before – not just physically, but mentally.

To the Boy's surprise, he does not ask him how it went. On the way back, he had been piecing together a plausible story for why the girl died and thinking of a way he could come across as genuinely remorseful. But it appears that his rehearsal was in vain.

"Before Minato died, he inscribed the key to your trigram seal on the stomach of a scroll toad, which is now in my possession. It has the power to both release or reinforce the seal. However, Naruto, there is one thing that you were probably not aware of about your seal." The white-haired man pauses. "Over the years, it has been gradually weakening by itself. If left alone, the Kyūbi will one day break completely free, and gain complete control over your body."

"_Is that true?_" the Boy asks, while keeping his face blank.

"_I do not know_," says the Voice. But the Boy does not know if it is telling the truth.

The white-haired man takes the Boy outside of the village. They travel a long way away, moving without pause for several hours while the remaining light in the air seeps away like acid into darkness. The Boy has never been to this area before; it is in the opposite direction of the island nation he and the others visited before.

When they finally come to a stop, they are in landlocked wilderness, a mass of barren land so expansive and empty that it could be a mere extension of the sky. It is cold.

"Are you ready?" the white-haired man asks with his arms crossed and his hair flapping restlessly with the wind. "I'm going to restore the seal to its original strength now."

"Yes," the Boy says.

"_The moment when he touches the seal will be when it will be at its most vulnerable,_" the Voice growls.

As the Boy watches, the white-haired man raises his hand.

"_If we time it correctly, we should be powerful enough to overcome him for an instant._"

A deep blue flame flickers into existence on each finger. A complicated pronged seal appears on his palm, followed by a long tail-like seal that extends fully along the underside of his arm.

"_And once I am free, no one will be able to stop us._"

The white-haired man thrusts his glowing hand toward the Boy's exposed abdomen. The Boy can hear the rough, anticipatory breathing of the Voice in his ears. It is so dark, it feels almost as if the Voice is right there behind him.

The eight trigrams seal has appeared on his stomach.

His mouth drawn back in his concentration, the white-haired man rotates his hand.

And at the exact same instant, from somewhere in the darkness of his mind, there is a deep, guttural roar and then an immense, ear-splitting crash.

A hot, electric shock runs through his body and the Boy's vision splits in two.

The Boy is distantly aware of his body falling to its knees. His blood feels as if it is boiling, steaming out straight through the pores of his skin. His hands are turning into claws as they've done so many times before, but it has never hurt the way it does now.

Through fragmented, faceted vision, he sees masses of dark red chakra shooting out of his body, forming what look like tails. The earth around him is trembling, sending out out wave-like shockwaves across the barren plain.

The white-haired man is shouting something, his face contorted in determination as he struggles to complete the lock. The Voice is howling in his head – and with another crashing sound, something massive throws itself against something again, so loud it feels as if his brain has caught on fire and is melting away into nothing.

"Naruto!" the white-haired man shouts. "You have to fight it!"

"_Attack him!_" the Voice roars. "_Distract him!_"

Everything is a haze. The Boy feels as if he is being torn apart at the seams.

Images flash haphazardly through his head again. Except this time, all he can see are dimly-lit windowless rooms – white coats, white masks – "Naruto!" – white hair – "_Let me out!_" – white walls –

And suddenly, everything snaps into one and the Boy finds himself in front of an immense cage, suspended in nothingness.

It is the same cage he found himself in when the Voice took over his body, but this time, he is outside of it.

There is something gigantic behind the bars of the cage, throwing itself against it. The bars have managed to hold, but they are beginning to crack. Crumbling pieces of rock tumble down from the ceiling of the cage, disappearing into nothing as it hits the floor.

This is the first time the Boy has seen the Voice. It had always hidden itself in deep darkness but for the first time, it has revealed itself.

Its irises are red, floating in white sclera bulging with veins. It has red-orange fur that is currently bristling and standing on end with rage, two long pointed ears lying flat against the top of its head, clawed hands that are swiping at the bars, and nine gigantic tails fanning out frantically behind it. Its maw is wide open, revealing a double layer of sharp fangs.

It is from this maw, that the Voice is coming out of as it continues to scream.

There is a white tag with the character for 'seal' where the cage has been padlocked closed. It is shredding at the edges.

"_Rip this seal off of me!_" the thing roars at him, banging against the bars.

The Boy blinks, looking up at the beast.

"_I knew you were called a nine-tailed fox..._" he starts.

"_What?!_" it growls.

"_But...for some reason, I didn't realize you were actually a fox._"

"_Idiot boy!_" it snarls. "_There's no time for this! Do it now, while the human's weakened!_"

"_I can't let you do that,_" says a calm voice.

* * *

For some reason, there is a blond man the Boy has never seen before standing in front of him. The haze surrounding the cage slowly begins to disperse around the man, and his form solidifies.

"_You!_" the beast snarls in shock. "_Fourth Hokage!_"

Seemingly taken aback, it momentarily ceases its assault on the cage bars.

"_Kyūbi,_" says the blond man, looking up at it with distaste. "_I never wanted to see you again._"

"_Banish him from this place!_" the beast hisses at the Boy. "_Or else he'll rebuild the seal!_"

"_As loud as ever, aren't you?_" says the man. He looks at the Boy. "_Let's go somewhere quieter to talk."_

With a snap of his fingers, the crumbling cage suddenly disappears. It is just the Boy and the blond man, floating in an empty world.

It is silent.

The Boy winces. It has been a long time since he has heard silence. He takes in a deep breath and looks down at his hands.

"_Do you know who I am, Naruto?_" the man asks.

"_No,_" the Boy replies.

"_I am your father,_" he says.

The Boy cocks his head.

Father?

The only thing he knows about 'fathers' is that they were the ones who patted their children on the head when they built a sandcastle. The Boy never had anyone who patted him on his head. He has never had a father.

"_I see,_" he says.

"_I left an imprint of myself within you, to be activated when the seal was on the verge of breaking._" The blond man pauses. "_Was Jiraiya-sensei trying to open the seal?_"

"_He was trying to close it,_" says the Boy.

The blond man looks at the Boy carefully. The Boy stares straight back.

"_Before I get to fixing the seal,_" he says. "_I want to ask. How has your life been? I'm sorry your mother and I couldn't be there for you while you were growing up._"

The Boy thinks it over for a few seconds.

"_It's been fun!_"

* * *

When the Boy opens his eyes, he is lying still in the middle of a large crater.

Gingerly, he picks himself up, brushing dirt off of himself. He looks around, but it is too dark to see more than a few meters in any direction. Offhandedly, he wonders what time it is. Is it midnight, or is it a new day?

Something groans near him.

"It's been a long time since I came so close to dying..." It is the white-haired man. From the tense note of pain in his voice, the Boy can tell that he has been hurt quite badly. There is a pause; the Boy turns to go. "You're leaving, aren't you?"

"Yes," the Boy replies. As injured as the white-haired man sounds, the Boy doubts he can kill him the way he is now. His body feels like a leaden block; it is all he can do to move.

"I won't stop you. But they'll stop at nothing to get you back," the white-haired man says quietly.

The Boy doesn't respond. Instead, with a crack of his fingers, he walks away, fading like a ghost into the darkness.

* * *

The beast has been raging inside his head for quite some time now. It growls in frenzied frustration, madly howling and banging against the bars of its cage.

The Boy pries his hand loose from the neck of the ANBU; with a gentle creaking of bone, the body slips down through the leaves of the treetop. Its white mask glints once before disappearing from view.

This is the tenth ninja they've sent after him, and it has only been a few weeks since he left, making his way south along the coastline.

The sunlight sears strongly down at the back of his neck as he surveys the stretch of tropical forest surrounding him. The wind blows against his face and as he lazily watches, a flock of bright blue birds suddenly burst out through the canopy and take flight into the air.

"_Have you calmed down, yet?_" the Boy asks the beast.

"_Calmed down?!_" it roars. "_Let me out!_"

The Boy sighs. The beast has been barely coherent since the blond man restored the seal. He supposes it is about time that he did something.

"_You heard what that man said,_" he says in an appeasing tone. "_The seal will weaken again gradually by itself. You can wait a few more years, can't you?_"

"..._what?_" the beast growls.

"_We have to be patient,_" the Boy says. "_There'll be another chance again. And then you'll be free, like you've always wanted._ _But until then..._"

"_...until then?_"

"_We'll wait. And while we wait, we can have all the fun we want._"

"_Fun?_" the beast says slowly.

"_We'll travel around the world! We can go to another village, and I'll learn all those jutsu I wanted to know...work on my traps...and then we can go to the ocean again and catch us some sharks and...what was the other thing you liked?_"

"_Whales,_" the beast supplies reluctantly.

"_And then when the seal breaks, you'll have complete possession over my body,_" the Boy says cheerfully.

The beast pauses hesitantly.

"_Are you sure?_"

"_Of course,_" the Boy lies. He smiles. "_I'm sure I'll have had my full of fun by then. I'll be so bored, I'll be begging you to take it already._"

"_Really?_" It doesn't sound sure.

"_Yes. After all..."_ The Boy languidly stretches back, looking up at the clear sky. "_...this is just a game._"

* * *

**A/N: **That was the good ending. If the seal in this story does not exactly follow the same rules as it does in canon, oh well. The next ending will be the bad ending.

Happy Halloween for those in USA.

**Edit: **Someone asked what Naruto's got planned for when the seal breaks again. Well...I don't think he really cares (at the moment). He's not thinking too far ahead long-term. I imagine he'll probably go back to Jiraiya for the key again. Either that, or he'll figure out a way to tame the kyuubi. (Or he gets screwed over by it but that's not quite a good ending).


	11. Nocturns III

**Nocturns III**

_Midnight (pt. 3-3)_

_ True Ending _

* * *

An answer at the tip of his tongue, the Boy opens his mouth to answer the Voice. But before he can make a sound, the other boy hanging off his shoulder lets out another groan, and in that instant, the answer slips away. If he reached out for it, he thinks he could have found it again, but as he does not know what it means to do so, he dismisses it.

The black-haired boy's eyes crack open, and for a second, looking completely lost, he looks back at the Boy in confusion. When realization flashes across his face, he leans away from the Boy and rakes his eyes around the demolished scene.

"What happened?" the black-haired boy mutters. He grips his forehead with his hands. "Where's Sakura?"

"He got her too," says the Boy.

The black-haired boy freezes. He turns disbelievingly toward the Boy, who points upward. His arms falling to his sides, the black-haired boy takes a hesitant step forward – and then in a burst of motion, bounds up the tree.

A few minutes later, he comes down holding the mangled body in shaking hands.

They return to the village. On the way back, they run into the masked jōnin. He gives them only a very weary look, and closes the girl's eyes.

* * *

"So you're back," says the white-haired man. "What happened?"

The Boy immediately begins his delivery of the recent events regarding the sand boy, and the white-haired man's face grows graver by the minute.

"…I couldn't save her," he finishes, "but thanks to her, I was able to finish Gaara."

The white-haired man nods, and then – to the Boy's surprise – without any further questions, he motions for the Boy to follow him.

Leaving the village behind, they travel a long way away, moving without pause in silence for several hours. When they finally come to a stop, they are in landlocked wilderness. It is cold.

The white-haired man finally begins to speak: "Before Minato died, he inscribed the key to your trigram seal on the stomach of a scroll toad, which is now in my possession. It has the power to both release or reinforce the seal." The white-haired man pauses. "You should know that over the years, it has been gradually weakening by itself. If left alone, the Kyūbi will one day break completely free, and gain complete control over your body."

"_A biased fool,_" the Voice says dismissively. "_What need would I have of a human's body?_"

"Are you ready?" the white-haired man asks. "I'm going to restore the seal to its original strength now. It will try to escape, but you must fight it. Do you understand, Naruto?"

"Yes," the Boy says.

A deep blue flame flickers into existence on each finger. A complicated pronged seal appears on his palm, followed by a long tail-like seal that extends fully along the underside of his arm. The white-haired man thrusts his glowing hand toward the Boy's exposed abdomen, and the eight trigrams seal appears. His mouth drawn back in his concentration, the white-haired man rotates his hand.

The wasteland fades away, and the Boy finds himself in front of an immense cage, suspended in nothingness. It is the same cage he found himself in when the Voice took over his body, but this time, he is outside of it. There is a white tag with the character for 'seal' where the cage has been padlocked closed.

"_Rip this seal off,_" says the Voice, resounding out from the deep darkness within the cage.

The Boy automatically begins to raise his hand – and then hesitates. "_What will happen?_"

"_I will regain much of my power, and will finally be able to do whatever we want_," the Voice answers.

"_What will happen to me?_"

"_Are you doubting me?_" the Voice says. "_After how I have guided and taught you all these years?_"

The Boy doesn't know what to say. For the first time in many years, he is not two, but one, in that empty space, and it bewilders him.

So he asks, "_You are my friend, aren't you?_"

"_What else would I be, idiot boy?_" the Voice snarls back.

And so, as he has done so for the entirety of his short life, the Boy listens. The Boy takes a step forward – for a split moment, he thinks he hears someone other than the Voice call out to him, but that is impossible of course – and pulls it off.

* * *

Once more, the Boy sits alone in a cage that floats above nothing. There is something different, however, which he notices almost immediately – that is, the space between the bars have drastically narrowed. Whereas he could have easily walked in and out through the space before, now, he can barely fit his arm through.

Coming from somewhere far in the distance, the Boy can hear the white-haired man and a voice that sounds like his own talking. Except of course, he isn't the one controlling his mouth. The Voice is controlling it, using him like a mouthpiece.

"Where is Naruto?" the white-haired man asks furiously, his jaw set and a hard glint in his eyes.

"We've switched spots," says his voice, floating out tauntingly. "Permanently."

"That won't be happening," says the white-haired man grimly. "Not while I'm alive."

"That can be easily remedied," says his voice.

Without any warning, the dark chakra that had been oozing out of his body in waves, detonates. Tails burst out, and his body, straining at its very seams, shoots forward.

A gigantic toad rises out of a cloud of smoke. The white-haired man stands on its back with two smaller robed toads sit on each shoulder. Half of his face has turned red and warts swell out from his nose.

Then, with a single breath, the two entities throw themselves at each other in a battle of proportions that the Boy has never seen or experienced before. What he and the sand boy did in their fight is nothing but a sandlot's skirmish in comparison. With every exchanged blow, sandstorms erupt and craters scorch the earth. If there had been mountains in the vicinity, they would have razed them all to dust. If the moon had been a bit closer, it would have been shattered to pebbles.

But even the white-haired man is ultimately no match for the Voice. He is growing visibly ragged and has started to pant. There is no fear in his eyes, but he will die soon. That is what the Boy feels.

"_What will we do next?_" he ponders.

After a while, the Voice responds, "_Whatever we want._"

When the battle is over, his body stretches his hands, pulling the fingers of one hand back with the other. Whatever wounds the white-haired man might have been able to inflict are already all healed, leaving no trace behind.

"_What do we want to do now?_"

The Voice doesn't bother responding. Instead, his body leaps into the air.

* * *

Time passes.

The Boy waits in the nothingness. He stopped paying attention to what his body is doing a long time ago. Sometimes, he thinks he can hear people from far away calling out to him, but the only voice he has needed to hear has always been beside him, so he pays them no mind.

He continues to wait.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And then all of a sudden, one day, everything fades away into white.

* * *

_Indeterminate time, realm of the gods_

He Who Is and the Creator of All Things peers critically down at the world.

"_What has happened here?" _He thunders largely to himself.

The beast He had taken pity on has taken over its host and razed one of the mortals' biggest villages to the ground. Looking into the future, He sees that the sudden vacuum in the balance of powers will throw the mortal world into a long era of war and darkness.

Frankly speaking, He quickly tired of the uninspired, insipid fights between the mortals in the time before they had villages. No doubt, the Gods' Board of Literature would reject such a work.

With a great sigh, the Supreme Being reaches out with a hand into the infinite emptiness of space and peels back the dimension. It is an impossibly thin layer composed of an immeasurable number of strands that He will now have to painstakingly go through so as to undo the changes wrought by the beast.

Heaving another sigh, He gets to work.

* * *

_Indeterminate time_

The Boy looks around, and realizes he appears to be floating in midair. In fact, he does not seem to be in any defined space, and there appear to be no limits in this place. It is different from the cage of his mind in which his feet were firmly planted on a surface, and his hands felt walls. Here, there is nothing.

The Boy wonders at how he can still be breathing and seeing when there is no air and light, when he suddenly realizes that he is not there. He has no eyes. He has no body. He is just there.

He is alone, and when he realizes this, he starts to feel afraid.

But as soon as he realizes it, he also realizes that he is not alone. There is something beside him – if such a thing is possible in nothingness – and if the Boy squints his nonexistent eyes, he can just barely start to make out the outline of something vaguely humanoid in shape.

"Who are you?" he asks.

"I am what humans would call a god...the creator if you will," the thing says.

It isn't the Voice, as he'd momentarily suspected. In fact, it doesn't have a voice. The words simply exist soundlessly in his nonexistent mind.

"Oh," he says, for lack of anything better to say. For a moment, it is silent. And then he asks, "What is this place?"

"This is the last strand of your dimension," says the creator. "I have unraveled every other strand, and this is the last one left. Once I have unraveled it, this dimension will fall apart and it will be as if it never existed."

"So what is this place?" The Boy repeats his question.

"It is you."

"Oh." The Boy does not know what else to say. After a few moments, he opens his nonexistent mouth once more. "Why haven't you unraveled it yet?"

"I am unraveling it as we speak," says the creator.

"What will happen to me?"

"You will disappear."

"Disappear? Permanently?"

"In a sense, yes."

"Why are you unraveling this place?"

"There were complications I had not foreseen in this dimension. I am unraveling it apart to weave it anew."

"I thought gods knew everything."

"No one knows everything," says the creator in an almost kind voice. "But we watch, and we learn. And we build anew."

"If you're weaving it back together, does that mean I'll exist again?" the Boy asks.

"No," is the reply, and the Boy can almost see the creator shaking his head. "You were a failure, so to speak. One of countless many before, and likely countless more ahead. And every time I weave anew, the resultant work is always different, even if just slightly. For instance, some prior versions of you didn't break the seal, while other versions of you never got the key. But though I refer to them as 'you' they are not the same 'you' as 'you,' and they too are all gone now." The creator pauses, and seems to look down at something in his hands. "I am almost done. Once this last segment is unraveled, you will no longer exist."

The Boy thinks that he does not like the sound of that, but he is alone. He does not know how to react, how he should react, so he waits instead.

Some time passes, and then finally, the creator appears to stand up. He seems to stretch his arms, as if he has had a long, hard day of working.

"This is it," the creator says. "Are you ready?"

"No," the Boy says, but he is not sure.

"You will not exist, but thanks to your failure, I will be able to remake the world just a bit better. Does that make you feel better?"

"Not really."

"It never does," the creator says with a sigh. "Well, I will give you some time to prepare yourself."

* * *

"_This is it,_" the Boy repeats to himself.

There is no reply back.

What will it be like to disappear?

He wishes he could ask the Voice, but the Voice is not there.

The Voice probably wouldn't know the answer, anyways.

_I still don't exactly know how ramen is made either_, he thinks wistfully to himself.

The Boy thinks back on his short life.

There isn't much to think back on.

Even the events of the recent past have become nothing but a blur.

The only consistency in his memories is the Voice, whispering in his ear at every step.

He wishes his friend were there with him.

But even so...

_It sure has been fun._

_Fun._

_And what do we do?_

_What do I do?_

_When I have fun…?_

_Hahaha…_

_HAHAHAHA…_

_HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA –_

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**A/N: **I wanted to write the bad ending before this but I've lost steam for that. Sorry! So I decided to just put up the true ending, which is this (disclaimer: I'm not religious. Do NOT take anything religious away from this. Re-read chapter 1 and refresh your memory if you must). If I ever feel like it I may finally write out the bad ending but for now, I'm leaving this as completed.

From reading the reviews, there are readers who don't like the way this story has gone. To be honest, while I'd had this 'true' ending planned from the start, the middle was changed along the way. I initially planned on really making this a parody with Naruto getting a harem and everything, buuut dropped the idea.

Anyways, this is it. Love it, hate it, don't care about it - regardless, thanks for reading.


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